Cursed Reality
by Lost-In-The-Muse
Summary: What to do? What to do? When you wake up as one of the most disliked characters in the Harry Potter Franchise? SI-OC-as-Petunia.
1. Chapter 1

There was a thick, unsavory haze clouding Dania's eyes. She squinted, trying to see through the grey shroud of smoke.

Dania held up her hand in front of her face. At least she thought she did. Nothing in her field of view changed. She had no visual confirmation that she'd moved at all.

And she was acutely aware that she couldn't hear anything either. Nothing at all.

However, in her peripheral vision, Dania thought she could see some shadows flicker and dance, like desaturated flames. The movement captured her attention, and she whirled her head around to get a better look.

Nothing. Just the same grey haze.

She turned her head in the opposite direction. Nothing there too.

Dania felt numb.

She should be panicking more. Be worried. Scared out of her mind. But all she could feel was nothing.

She didn't feel on edge like something was about to jump out at her from the shadows and attack her. Yet she couldn't say that she was tranquil, nor did she hold any semblance of calm. Just on the borderline between caring and not caring about her unexplainable plunge into this haze.

What was she doing here anyway?

Dania tried to think back to the last thing she could remember. She raked, rummaged, kneaded her mind. Nothing. Dania couldn't remember anything before the haze.

And she was having a hard time convincing herself that this was a cause for concern. All Dannia wanted to do is lay down and sleep.

That sounded nice. A peaceful, uninterrupted nap. How many of those had she had the last couple of days? Weeks? Months? Years?

She closed her eyes. The grey world turned black. Dania sunk into her subconscious like a skipping stone descending to the bottom of a lake.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that. It could have been a couple of seconds, it could have been a couple of years. But suddenly-

Dania heard voices.

The muscle in her cheek twitches. Then she heaved her bleary eyes open.

She blinked once. Twice. Three times.

There were shapes. Moving through the swirls of fog.

It was something undeniably new out there, but for the life of her she couldn't make out what.

Dania rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.

The shapes became clearer.

And Just like that, vibrant colors exploded to life in her vision. The fuzzy outlines of the odd shapes disappeared, replaced by crisp contours complete with rigged lines and smooth curves. The haze was gone.

Completely.

Dania was left standing in the middle of a living room. An ancient and outdated living room.

There was a small, boxy television in the corner with long bunny ear antennas stick out the top. A floral couch and a reclining chair were arranged around a single coffee table with a bouquet of an assortment of paper flowers stuck in a vase. Sky blue curtains that complimented the yellow and white striped wallpapers framed the large, rectangular window.

And there was a man in front of Dania. Down on one knee. Holding an open box with a ring nestled in it.

He silently stared up at Dania with a huge smile plastered on his face and a sparkle in his eye.

It took a moment before Dania connected the dots.

"...What…?" Dania croaked out. She felt a sharp pain in her chest. As if a woodpecker had decided that her heart was a perfect meal, and her ribcage was standing in its way.

The smile on the man's face slipped for a fraction of a second before it returned at full force.

"Petunia Evans, would you do me the pleasure of marrying me?" The man said slowly as to ensure that Dannia could hear every word he said.

Dania stared at him blankly. The man started to shift uncomfortably under her gaze.

"Vernon," The name popped into Dania's head out of nowhere. "I- I don't…" she trailed off.

What. Was. Happening.

The smile on Vernon's face disappeared entirely.

"I'm sorry- I can't, I don't know-" Dania didn't know what was going on. She wanted to go back to the haze. The haze was quiet and warm. The outside world was loud and harsh. Why was this person proposing to her? Who was this person? Why did she know his name?

Dania was jerked out of her thoughts by a loud snap that echoed throughout the room.

Vernon shut the box and lowered his hand. He stayed there in a kneeling position. Glaring a hole in the carpet.

Dania felt herself freeze stiff. She couldn't move.

"That's it?" The man said, pouring venom into every breath. Dania took a step back. "THAT'S _IT_?!" Vernon roared, springing up to his feet. "AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?"

"Vernon, please," Dania pleaded, although she really didn't know why.

"No, Petunia!" He said, face twisting in anger. "I am done with this. I am done with you. I am done with all of you freaks!" he sneered.

Dania shrank back.

"I thought you were different! Different from all of the other girls! I Thought YOU were NORMAL, but NO! Vernon growled as he continued on his tirade, "You're just as bad as your sister!" He spat.

Before Dania could open her mouth to say something or do anything, Vernon hurled the box into the vase of paper flowers. The glass shattered on impact, sending shards flying across the table and scattered onto the floor.

The flowers themselves though were sprawled on the oak wood of the tabletop. A halo of sprinkled glass surrounded them. The tiny, rigid pieces glistened in the light as the rays of the sun filtered through the only window of the room.

Dania stared at the mess. Her hand gripped her chest as if she was trying to keep her beating heart from falling out. In the back of her mind, she made a note to herself to dig out the vacuum from the broom closet in the kitchen and clean up the shards before someone got hurt.

"Goodbye Petunia," Vernon snarled as he wrenched open the front door. "I hope you rot in hell like your freak of a family."

The door slammed shut.

Dania was left standing all alone in the middle of the living room. Surrounded by shattered glass.

She balled the hand that rested on her chest, wrapping the beige fabric around her fingers.

What. The. Hell. Just. Happened.

Dania stood, inhaling and exhaling at an unhealthily rapid pace. Her blood beat through her veins like a herd of stampeding rhinos. Her vision tunneled, leaving white and grey static fluttering in her eyesight.

She stared at the door that Vernon had just stormed through. Her legs wobbled underneath her weight as if she would crumble into an unresponsive heap on the floor if a slight breeze so much as jostled her flyaway hairs.

Something wet rolled down her cheek before dripping off of her chin.

She was crying.

Why was she crying?

She just escaped an abusive relationship.

He was her one true love, though. And now he was gone.

A shaky breath escaped Dania's lips. Slowly, Dania lifted her free hand up and pressed the palm of her hand against the stone cold, wooden wall. She inched her hand forward, guiding her trembling form into the kitchen where she dug out a broom and a dustpan.

The glass shards weren't going to clean themselves. That dumbass had the nerve to ruin her mother's favorite vase.

But Dania could not bring herself to begin sweeping away the destruction that Vernon had left behind. She stood on the threshold between the kitchen and the living room with a straw broom in one hand and a worn out plastic dustpan in the other, poised and ready to clear out the remains of the vase.

The remains of their relationship.

Dania bit down on her lip hard enough to draw a sliver of blood.

Vernon was gone. She had messed up. She had messed up big time, and there was no way she was ever going to get back into the good graces of the one man who'd ever shown any interest in her.

Dania furrowed her eyebrows. But then again, did she really give a damn? She didn't even know that human personification of a five-week-old burrito. And from what little Dania had seen of him, Dursley seemed like a downright asshole. How dare he propose to a woman he'd never met before and then destroy her living room.

That douche canoe.

That was a stupid thought, of course, Dania knew who Vernon was. He was the endearing junior executive who had come to work with a bouquet of flowers every Monday morning just for her.

He was a perfectly ordinary man, she was a perfectly average woman. A perfect match. They were made for each other.

Dania repressed a snort. Yeah, right. Made for each other. Like oil and water.

But… she loved him.

No, She most certainly did not.

Dania felt a shiver run down her spine as if a phantom hand was sewing snowflakes into her back.

The broom and dustpan clattered to the ground.

"Who the hell are you?" The woman whispered in terror so quietly she could barely hear her own words.

That was the moment her legs finally gave out, and she crumpled to the floor like a discarded paper doll.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Evans returned to their home almost ten minutes later to find their daughter's body strewn on the hardwood floors with a scattering of broken glass and lotus flowers surrounding her.

Mrs. Evans's light and jovial mood after finishing her shopping disintegrated into hysteria as she threw her two heavy bags of groceries to the side and dropped down to her knees beside her daughter and did everything she could to try and rouse the young woman. A shroud of blurry tears formed around the older woman's eyes.

The excited air that had followed Mr. Evans all the way home from the grocery store evaporated the moment he heard his wife screech in agony and saw his little girl laying on the ground completely unresponsive.

He raced to the landline and called for help.

* * *

Vernon Dursley glowered as he pulled his car to the side of the road to make room for an ambulance that went speeding in the opposite direction.

How dare Pe- that woman treat him like that.

After all of those dates, all of that money spent buying stupid girly things, all of the time Vernon had devoted to her when he could have spent it better at a bar or at a sporting event.

He'd even put aside the fact that her sister was a circus freak because that's what good boyfriends do, they accept their girlfriends even if they're from an unnatural family.

And yet, none of that seemed to matter.

The ambulance passed, and Vernon steered the car back onto the road. He slammed on the gas pedal without bothering to ensure that he was going under the speed limit.

Then, in a fit of rage, he rammed his fist against the car horn, releasing a long, loud honk as he drove past rows and rows of identical houses.

Vernon thought he'd done everything right. He had everything prepared.

He asked the parents first if he could marry their daughter, and his request was met with happy smiles and laughs. He thought up of the perfect place to propose to her, the sitting room of her childhood home in Cokeworth. Vernon thought it was rather clever to do it there.

He called Mr. and Mrs. Evans in advance to get Petunia to take a few days off from work to come home. He then drove to the house himself and arrived at the front door at the specified time when Mr. and Mrs. Evans had told him that they'd be off doing some shopping so he could be alone with their daughter.

Vernon could still remember the look on her face when he rang the doorbell. Bewilderment, and excitement. She welcomed him into her parent's home with a quick hug before Vernon took her hand and lead her to the middle of the living room. He got down on one knee and presented the ring.

And that's when his grand plan of getting the perfect housewife who would always have dinner ready and waiting for him when he came home from work evaporated.

He thought she was just experiencing a bit of shock. After all, it wasn't every day that a woman gets the opportunity of a lifetime to become Mrs. Dursley. But that blank and uncomprehending look on her face never morphed into joy or happiness or anything. Her eyes didn't light up. The word 'yes' never even graced her lips. She didn't even have the decency to smile.

Instead, she started yapping at him in the most condescending tone of voice that Vernon had ever heard her use.

She said no.

That woman told him no.

The scene played out over and over in Vernon's head as his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

How dare she deny him.

How dare she make a fool of him.

How dare she waste all of his efforts.

How dare she, how dare she, how dare she.

Under the cloudless, late afternoon sky Vernon pulled into a gas station. He lolled his head from side to side as he waited for his car to fill up. There was no one else around save for a couple of employees lazing around the station listening to revolting American country music on the radio.

Vernon leaned against his car and tucked his hands into his jean pockets.

He was going to make that woman pay for refusing to marry him. He will have his revenge. One way or another.

* * *

Miles away from that little back road gas station in the heartland of Great Britain, in the waiting room of a relatively small hospital just on the outskirts of Cokesworth, Mrs. Evans paced back and forth, tugging nervously at her loose strands of hair in between anxious glances at the doors to the ER.

Oh, she tried to go in with her. Mrs. Evans was first and foremost a mother. She stayed by her daughter's side in those first few agonizing moments when she found her daughter lying on the ground after that horrid man who she'd been dating left. And Mrs. Evans continued to be with her during the ambulance ride. She held her daughter's ice cold hand as the paramedics twittered around them, trying to resurrect the young woman.

But when they arrived at the hospital, they were told that they could go no further. They'd just get in the way of the medical professionals and hinder the doctor's work.

Mrs. Evans had very nearly ripped the receptionist's head clean off of his shoulders when he told her she couldn't go, if not for her husband physically holding her back.

Every so often Mrs. Evans whipped her head around to glare at that incredibly rude receptionist. The receptionist in turn shrunk into their seat and made an attempt to hide behind his paperwork.

Mrs. Evans released a small if a bit restrained smirk. If she couldn't be with her baby girl when she was walking the fine line between life and death, Mrs. Evans was going to make everyone else as uncomfortable as she could.

On the other side of the room, Mr. Evans had positioned himself in a chair near the poor, terrified receptionist's desk so that he could watch the clock and keep an eye on his irked wife.

His right leg jiggled in place, his fingers tapped against the armrests, his eyes were glued to the ticking second hand on the clock. In his head, he counted every second. Every minute. And eventually, every hour.

Mr. Evans let out a long sigh as he reclined in his seat.

This was not how he envisioned spending his Saturday afternoon.

He was supposed come home with his lovely wife to find his happy little girl about to embark on the next phase of her life in the arms of a decent fellow who was already on his way to securing a sound financial future for himself and Petunia.

Turns out that 'decent' fellow wasn't so decent after all.

Mr. Evans stopped drumming his fingers and balled his hand into a fist.

If he never saw that two-faced Vernon Dursley again it would be too soon.

The moment he opened his front door and found his daughter half dead on the ground would forever be burned into Mr. Evans's memory, and he had no intention of letting the perpetrator of this heinous crime get away.

Mr. Evans swore that he would get justice for his daughter, even if it meant taking things to court.

* * *

Under blinding white lights and surrounded by medical equipment and machines of all shapes and sizes, lay a deathly pale woman. Her face was locked in an everlasting contortion of pain. A whirlwind of activity swept around her. Nurses and Doctors ran to and fro, barking orders, gathering needed supplies, doing everything they could to stabilize their patient.

The woman barely responded to any of the poking and prodding. An involuntary twitch of the muscles here and there, but not much else.

Her body, as it was clear to everyone, was unresponsive.

And yet, if one were to take a look at her brainwave activity, they'd find that they were off the charts. Something highly unusual in a comatose patient. The activity in the brain was double the usual amount of any human being when it should have been dampened and slow for someone in her state.

It was almost as if she wasn't in a coma at all despite her unresponsiveness. It was almost as if two entities were occupying the same space… the same mind...

This was a significant cause of concern for the doctors. No one had ever seen anything like it before.

Her condition didn't seem to be deteriorating, but she didn't seem to be improving either.

But after hours of work, hours of nurses tearing their hair out, hours of doctors doing everything they could to stabilize their patient, her brainwave activity returned to normal. She took a long, shaky breath much to the relief of the ER doctors.

Petunia Evans retreated.

Dania Møller prevailed.

 **Disclaimer:**

 **I, Lost-In-The-Muse, do not own the rights to the Harry Potter franchise. This is a fan work meant to entertain those who would like to read it. I am not, nor will I ever receive any sort of payment for writing this fanfiction.**

 **Author's note:**

 **This Chapter was written while listening to Ophelia by The Lumineers**

 **Hello everyone, this is my first fic of 2019 and it's a Harry Potter self insert! This plot bunny has been bouncing around in my head for a solid year now and I actually got started on writing this fic way back in February 2018, but then I lost interest in the actual 'Writing' part of it and spent way more time on imagining what this fic was going to be. Then about a month ago I came back to it and started working and reworking what I had written and managed to churn out over 10,000 words so far of this story and I figured now is a good time to start posting.**

 **This is not going to be like a lot of self inserts you find out there. Trust me, I've never found a self insert in the Harry Potter fandom that comes close to what I'm trying to do here (but if someone does find a fic similar to this one, please let me know I want to read it). Namely, I've never seen anyone have a self insert in the body of Petunia, and I've never seen a self insert already changing so much of the game (even if it is rather unwittingly) so early in the time line either, so I figured that someone needed to write a fic like this.**

 **And as we conclude this first chapter in what I hope will become a multichapter epic, please leave a review or comment on your thoughts so far. Tell me what I did well and what I did wrong, I'm very open to constructive criticism (however no flames please).**

 **But in the event you don't have anything to say about my writing, I want to ask you guys one question: If you woke up as a Harry Potter character for one day, who would you want to be and why?**

 **For me personally, I'd like to be Tonks because I love her and her Metamorphmagus abilities are amaaaazing!**

 **That's all for now, see you guys next week for the next installment of Cursed Reality!**

 **~ Lost-In-The-Muse**


	2. Chapter 2

On September 15th, Flight 397 from Boston to Paris began its boarding process a good thirty minutes before departure.

Dania Møller, a Danish woman with a head of coffee brown hair and a pair of dull blue eyes, rose from her seat in perfect sync with the other people around her.

She adjusted her grip on her lima-bean green carry on bag and hiked the handle of her purse higher up on her shoulder. She dragged her things through the gate with a secure sense of familiarity as she fell into line with the other passengers.

Six hours down, eight more to go.

Theoretically speaking, her flight from San Francisco to Boston wasn't half bad. There were no screaming children, no overly loud passengers making ridiculous requests to the staff onboard the plane, and no immediate signs that someone may have been sick.

But the complete and utter lack of sleep the night before and a general inability to fall asleep those six hours in the air over the continental US took its toll. Dania was practically walking down the isles of the Airbus like a zombie who was completely uninterested in brains and would much rather settle down for some piping hot caffeinated tea.

Or decaffeinated tea. Whatever helped Dania sleep.

Dania mumbled something unintelligible to herself as she scanned the countless rows of seating, trying to find the numbered row that matched the one listed on her ticket. When she finally found it, she was relieved to see that the three-seat row was still empty.

She heaved her carry-on up into the overhead compartment and crawled into the window seat. Wordlessly, she started rummaging around in her purse and pulled out her headphones, phone and neck pillow and sunk into the tight, economy class seat.

Dania switched her phone into airplane mode after sending a quick text to her parents letting them know she was on her way, and began listening to some classical music. She tilted her head to the side so that she could stare out the window at the twinkling lights of the airport against the backdrop of the night sky.

Eight more hours and she'll be touching down in Paris where she'd take a cab to the hotel where her family was waiting for her.

They'd been planning this trip for a solid year now.

She had saved up and taken a week's worth of vacation days, and her parents made arrangements with the three university students under their employment at the family flower shop in Copenhagen so they could take off for five days.

Neither Dania, nor her parents had been to France in years, and the opportunity to play the part of a tourist was something the entire Møller Family was looking forward to. And before Dania had to head back to San Francisco they were planning on taking a train Amsterdam to visit Dania's aunt for a day as well. They'd part ways at the airport there, and Dania would head back to her tiny apartment in San Francisco that she shared with two other women.

Dania closed her eyes and let her muscles relax as her music washed over her.

Just eight more hours. Eight more hours.

Surprisingly, or perhaps entirely unsurprisingly, Dania fell asleep before the plane even had a chance to take off.

She expected to stay awake at least until one of the flight attendants announced over the intercom that it was now safe to unbuckle and move about the cabin.

But Dania supposed she underestimated just how tired she was and how effective her music was in soothing her mind and cast her thoughts into oblivion.

It was a gentle sleep, one without any dreams.

And perhaps, had Dania's sleep not been interrupted, she would have woken up a little less than an hour before the plane lands, fully rested and ready to take on the day and the inevitable jet lag like the seasoned traveler that she was.

Nothing prepared her from being ripped out of her sleep by the sound of explosions.

Dania's heart lurched into her throat before she could even open her eyes. Her hands shot out and grabbed the armrests in a death grip as she pressed herself into her seat to make herself seem as small as possible. Snapping open her eyes, Dania frantically scanned her surroundings.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

The explosions went off one after another in a barrage of noise.

Something touched her arm.

Dania tore her headphones off.

"Hey, are you alright? Do you need some water or something? I can get a flight attendant."

Dania's eyes darted to the right. Blood pumped in her ears as she struggled to calm down from her adrenaline high.

A woman was sitting next to her, a very young one that appeared to be just on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood. She had twisted around in her seat so that she was facing Dania, with one hand holding onto the seat in front of her while the other rested on Dania's forearm.

"You know what," She said when Dania stayed silent, "I'm gonna call a flight attendant." and she began rising up from her seat.

"No!" Dania said a little too quickly, "No I'm fine, you don't need to call anyone."

The auburn haired woman shot her a look of disbelief but sat back down nonetheless.

Dania glanced down at the phone in her lap before she shifted around in her seat and picked it up.

"I forgot I had Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture on this playlist," Dania said with a slight laugh as she flipped the phone around and showed the screen to the woman sitting next to her.

The woman tilted her head ever so slightly and furrowed her eyebrows like she couldn't quite understand why that tidbit of information had anything to do with Dania jumping out of her sleep.

"Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer in the late 1800s. He used military weapons as musical instruments, and I guess I was playing my music too loudly and the cannon fire woke me up." Dania further explained.

"Cannon fire?" The woman asked, looking a little lost.

"Yes," Dania answered as she wrapped the aux cord around her headphones before stuffing her headphones and her phone into her purse.

The woman stared at Dania for a moment "Who puts weaponry in classical music?" she asked but before Dania could answer the woman shook her head, "Nevermind, the Russians would. Are you sure you don't need anything? I got Ibuprofen in my bag, and-"

"I'm fine," Dania insisted, but the other woman didn't look convinced. "I don't think I caught your name," Dania said in an attempt to distract the other woman.

The woman opened her mouth but whatever she was about to say was cut off by the entire world suddenly start to rattle violently.

The plane rocked from side to side like some sort of amusement park ride. Dania's hands wrapped themselves around the armrests once again as oxygen masks at every seat fell down.

Dania couldn't remember much after that. Some bright flashes of light, some screaming, and lots and lots of violent jostles that threw Dania this way and that in her seat.

Then there was a sickening crack and a lightning bolt of pain in her forehead.

Then came the haze. The Proposal. The Breakdown.

And then there was the floor, coming right at her face.

* * *

"Aaaaahaaahaaaaaaoowww…. Lort….. Alt gør ondt…."

"She's waking up! Miss. Evans is waking up!"

"Someone call Dr. Benson!"

"...Kan alle bare slukke deres mund sirener…?"

"It sounds like her speech is garbled. Is it from the head injury?"

"Hold on, I can't hear her well enough."

"Where is Dr. Benson?!"

"...Hold kæft alle sammen!"

"She's speaking gibberish."

"No no no, listen, she's speaking phonetically."

"...For fanden da også vær så stille…..."

"It sounds… almost Scandinavian"

"Does Miss. Evans know any languages other than English?"

"She's not supposed to."

* * *

Dania wasn't on the plane. She wasn't falling through the atmosphere. She wasn't drowning in the stretch of ocean between Greenland and Iceland.

No. She was in a hospital room with outdated equipment, surrounded by doctors with British, or maybe Scottish accents, and a throbbing pain that encompassed the entirety of her brain.

The lights were too blinding. She couldn't focus properly. She'd start talking to the doctors, and her mind would suddenly go blank and she'd would forget what she was even trying to say.

Occasionally she could register the utterly baffled look on their faces, but she didn't have the concentration to fully process exactly what was causing the doctors and nurses around her to be so puzzled.

It all felt like she was submerged in a dream.

A dream that was accompanied by the loud beat of the most god awful migraine she ever had the displeasure of having.

The bed beneath her didn't feel tangible, the tests the hospital staff administered to her didn't feel real, and the things people asked her were straight up outlandish.

Why was everyone talking about some "Petunia Evans"? Dania had never heard of anyone with that name before outside of fiction. Sure she knew a couple of people with the last name of Evans but never combined with the name of a flower.

Perhaps they were merely talking about the bowl of petunia that sat by the window. Maybe the elderly couple who brought them for her named them Evans. And now everyone was just going along and calling the petunias by the name of Evans.

That's what Dania thought those first few blurry days after waking up. Until her brain finally made the connection that no, the doctors and nurses were not talking about the bowl of petunias on the window sill.

They were talking about her.

They thought her name was Petunia Evans.

Dania may not have known much about her current situation, where she was or what was going on, but one thing she did know for sure was her own goddamn name.

So she corrected them.

Every time someone called her Petunia, she'd tell them her name was Dania, which prompted a confused:

"Yes, I know your name is Petunia."

To which Dania would reply "No, my name is Dania. It's spelled D-A-N-I-A."

And the response to that is always, "Petunia, you don't have to spell your name, we know it already."

"No! My name is not Petunia, it's Dania! Dania Møller! Listen, just ask my parents when they get here."

But despite all of her protests, all of her insistence that her name was truly Dania, people kept calling her Petunia.

Why? Dania didn't have a clue.

And to be frank, it was beginning to grate on her nerves.

It didn't stop at her name either. It was as if everyone Dania came into contact with was conspiring against her to make her question the series of events that led her to be hospitalized in some nameless hospital in the United Kingdom.

Or perhaps everyone Dania interacted with were delusional and terrible listeners.

They didn't even believe her about the plane crash. The doctors thought that her mind was creating falsified memories to deal with her traumatic encounter with some guy named Vernon Dursley.

Another name she couldn't quite recognize. He was clearly someone important, that much Dania could deduce based on how frequently his name came up in conversation amongst the nurses. And someone who probably did something illegal given all of the police officers and lawyers that had come to her little hospital room to collect statements from her.

Dania really wasn't sure what they were looking for her. She explained to them that she didn't know who they were talking about and that they should probably talk to someone else, but all they did was nod sagely and promise her that they were going to make sure he will face justice for the damage done to her mind.

It didn't make any sense whatsoever.

Still doesn't stop the elderly couple that visits her daily from reassuring her that they will make Dursley pay for what he did.

This was all just so crazy.

Absolutely insane.

Which is why, after a solid week of staring at the same ceiling of her hospital room, Dania decided that she was in a coma. Medically induced or otherwise.

It made sense, weirdly enough. She must have been in critical condition after the sudden loss of altitude before the plane crashed into the Atlantic ocean. She remembered something hitting her head on the way down, that's for sure.

So all of this? This was just her own personal dream world that her mind had retreated to while she recovered from her injuries in the real world.

Dania didn't know how long it would take before she woke up in the real world. She hoped it wasn't too long though, she knew that it was highly probable that her body was deteriorating with every moment she was in this dream world.

But there really wasn't anything she could do about it. After all, how does one wake themselves up from a coma?

It's just so much easier to play along with her mind's creations.

Yes, of course, her name is Petunia Evans.

Yes, of course, she was born and raised in England.

Yes, of course, her parents were that strange British couple.

Yes, of course, it was September of 1977.

Her amiability also seemed to set her doctors at ease. After two weeks of being held for observation, Dania was released with a stringent list of what she could and could not do while recovering at home.

A list that included a ban on her working for a solid six months.

So when Dania's stand-in-parents hustled her to their home in a very Charles Dickens-inspired English town, they made sure to notified whatever company she was 'working' at in London themselves that she would not be able to show up for the next half a year or so.

Dania promptly lost that job since the pre-existing condition of being a woman was a terrible thing for job security. Especially since she wasn't going to be showing up to work for the next couple of months.

That left Dania firmly confined to one small townhouse for the foreseeable future.

She didn't do much the first week or so of being 'home.' It was still too difficult for her to be outside without feeling like the sun was burning off her retinas. And even when she was inside, she needed to wear sunglasses.

But at the very least she'd managed to regain her ability to concentration more or less on any task. She could organize her thoughts now and she didn't feel like her train of thought was crashing into a brick wall every other second.

And while she still felt the pull of lightheadedness whenever she walked, at least Dania wasn't straight up fainting when she stood up anymore.

Dania spent her days cautiously wandering around the Evans household.

She'd spend a few hours each day reading with only a small ambient light and the curtains drawn, and she'd help out with some small chores she was capable of doing. Because Dania was many things, but a freeloader she was not.

She was able to fall into a comfortable routine with Mr. and Mrs. Evans.

She'd be the last to wake up in the morning because apparently jet lag and time zone changes were still a thing in her subconscious. She'd get herself ready for the day, and walk downstairs to find that Mrs. Evans already had breakfast ready and waiting on the table.

Dania would then have an amicable conversation with Mr. Evans about the state of the economy. After that, Mr. Evans would bid Mrs. Evans and her farewell as she left for work leaving Mrs. Evans and Dania to take care of what needed to be taken care of in the house.

Although, it was really Mrs. Evans who was doing all of the heavy lifting. Dania could only get away with doing the dishes or maybe putting the laundry away before Mrs. Evans shooed her back up to her bedroom, insisting that she should take the time to rest her poor injured head.

At around three o'clock every day, a couple of doctors, psychologists, and linguists would stop by for a checkup and run some cognitive, memory, and language proficiency tests.

Dania was a little confused why they seemed to be so focused on the fact that she could speak Danish.

She had told them over and over and over again that her knowledge of the Danish language wasn't something that she had recently acquired. She'd been speaking it her entire life. It was her first language after all.

But whenever Dania tried to explain that, the professionals studying her linguistic ability never seem to hear her. Or rather, they would ignore her explanation entirely and start coming up with their own theories that she had gained some sort of condition after her incident.

By the fourth in house check-in, Dania had given up trying to convince the Doctors that she wasn't a walking medical miracle.

Really, she didn't understand why they all were so giddy about it. Nor did she understand why her unconscious mind wanted English to be her native language over Danish.

Dania's group of doctors, psychologists and linguists would leave at precisely five o'clock, leaving Dania with plenty of free time afterward in which she would settle down in her room and read some books.

Then Mr. Evans would come home from work, and the whole family would all gather around the dinner table to eat. And Mr. and Mrs. Evans would shuffle into the living room to watch some laughably poor reality TV shows on the small television set that had bunny eared antennas and everything.

All things considered, it wasn't a bad dream.

No zombie apocalypse, no conveniently placed cliffs to fall off of, no hellish demons bent on dragging her immortal soul into the jaws of Satan himself….

...It could have been worse. Dania had to admit that much.

Her situation could have been so so much worse.

 **Danish To English Language Key:**

 **Lort Alt gør ondt = Shit Everything hurts**

 **Kan alle bare slukke deres mund sirener = can everyone just turn off their mouth sirens *Quote from Brooklyn Nine Nine***

 **Hold kæft alle sammen! = Shut up all of you!**

 **For fanden da også vær så stille = For fuck's sake be quiet**

 **Author's Note:**

 **EDIT (2/4/2019): Corrected the Danish phrases. Thank you to thedarksun_writes On AO3 for all of your help! :D**

 **This chapter was written while listening to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.**

 **IMPORTANT! I do not speak Danish, I am not Danish, nor have I ever visited Denmark. The Danish phrases I used in this chapter are from Google Translate and as we all know Google Translate is not at all reliable. This is more of an experiment to see how well I can write about a character who is Danish and I would appreciate if there are any Danish people or native Danish speakers out there who could help correct any Danish I get wrong or help add authenticity to Dania.**

 **Now that's out of the way, can I just say how completely blown away I was by the support you guys are giving me on this fic? Seriously, every single review and comment I got just completely made my day! I can't thank you guys enough!**

 **I'm also super happy that I actually managed to get this chapter out on time. I will be striving to complete each chapter by Saturday of each week but I am hesitant to officially announce a formal schedule due to the fact that I am notoriously bad at keeping to a schedule. But for you guys, I'll try me best :D**

 **If you liked this chapter, please leave a comment telling me what you thought about it! They all really do help motivate me complete the next chapter faster and make sure that the quality is top notch!**

 **See you all next weekend!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


	3. Chapter 3

Dania hesitated to point out the fact that there was a nocturnal bird tapping at the window of the Evans family kitchen. She winced as the sharp noise caused a pulse of pain to shoot through her forehead, and she turned her head away.

But her eyes never left the bird.

A moment passed. Then two.

The Barn Owl did not budge. It just sat there, staring at Dania with huge, dilated eyes like it was staring into her very soul. Judging her.

And then very slowly, it lifted one of its feet, and without breaking eye contact, it tapped on the glass once more, causing Dania to visibly flinch.

Needless to say, the Danish woman was not only creeped out but in pain as well.

She waited a full minute to see if the elderly man sitting across the table from her would do or say anything. Mr. Evans did nothing but sip his coffee calmly, and turn the page of the newspaper.

Dania counted down from ten, and then she couldn't take it anymore.

"Why is there an owl there?" she finally asked, lowering the price of scrambled egg that was skewered on her fork.

"Hm?" Mr. Evans looked away from his reading material. The moment he caught sight of the of the creature of the night sitting outside the window in the broad morning daylight, his face lit up like a bonfire. "Honey! Lily sent us an owl!" he yelled to his wife in the other room.

Mrs. Evans came barreling from the pantry with what must have been at least a dozen canned goods in her arms, which she promptly dumped onto the counter.

"About time! Lily hasn't sent us anything in months, I was beginning to worry." She said as she sashayed across the room and opened the window so that the owl could hop into the house. "Quick, give it your plate!"

Mr. Evans grabbed his untouched plate of breakfast food and pushed it towards the massive bird. The bird cocked its head to the side as if trying to determine if the scrambled eggs and bacon were good enough for it to indulge in. After a few beats, it ruffled its feathers and began to peck at the strips of bacon, much to Mrs. Evans delight.

"Oh good, hopefully, that will keep him from flying away before we're done. Go on then, read the letter before this little fella finishes and takes off!" Mr. Evans said.

Mrs. Evans wrung her hands together before she approached the bird. "We didn't even get a chance to tell her what happened to Tuni last time." She commented as she leaned over and started to inspect the owl's boney legs.

Dania sat there, eyes wider than the Grand Canyon, completely unable to comprehend why on earth were these people being so calm with a wild animal in the house.

Even for her coma induced dreamscape, she would have at least assumed that owls should have been a bird that only came out at night. And they most certainly weren't supposed to be used as some sort of messenger pigeons.

But then again, Dania's brain seemed to be convinced that she was a British national living in 1970s England so maybe daytime owls weren't so far fetched in this false reality.

Still, that didn't stop Dania from eyeing the owl's talons warily. They were sharp. Like the end of a candy cane after someone's been working on it for longer than they should have.

"So, what did Lily send us?" Dania asked, despite not knowing who the hell this Lily was since she'd never been brought up in a conversation before. It was better to play along and figure things out along the way, right? Fake it till you make it and all of that jazz.

Her brain would fill in the details and tell her what part to play eventually.

Mr. Evans put his newspaper down and stared at Dania. "You're not usually this calm when Lily sends a letter," he observed.

Dania furrowed her eyebrows in a mild expression of confusion but nonetheless pressed her smiling lips together and shrugged half-heartedly.

The older man tilted his head to the side ever so slightly, but then turned his attention back to his wife. "What does it say, dear?"

Mrs. Evans had coaxed the owl down to the counter where it stuck its leg out. Dania leaned forward and squinted her eyes. It looked like there was some sort of rolled up piece of paper tied to the leg with a bit of twine.

Definitely not something you see every day.

But Mrs. Evans didn't even seem to register the oddity of the owl and went right on ahead and united the piece of paper, unrolled it and began to read.

Without missing a beat, Mr. Evans picked up the plate of half-eaten breakfast that the bird had been working at, stood up, and pushed the plate over to the bird once more. It promptly picked up where it finished and gulped down the scrambled eggs.

Dania did not comment.

"Ooooh, that's our little girl! At the top of her class and everything!" Mrs. Evans squealed as she hugged the thick sheet of paper to her chest. "Here, here, read it." She said handing the letter to her husband after a bout of giggling.

The man took the letter, adjusted his reading glasses and began scanning the sheet of paper. After a few minutes of silence, he slowly nodded his head.

"That's good," He said, nodding his head, "It's good that she's enjoying her last year at Hogwarts."

Hogwarts.

Dania blinked.

And the dam broke.

"Seriously? Hogwarts?" She asked with a semi-obscured snort "That's what we're going with?"

Mrs. Evans hummed and put her hands on her hips, "I know you don't like magic, but it's not going to hurt you to be supportive of your little sister." she admonished as if she'd given this lecture a million times.

"Oh no, I'm not trying to be unsupportive or anything, but why Hogwarts? It's not even a real school… Oh wait I get it, She's a Harry Potter nerd." Dania said as she reclined in her kitchen chair, "Not that I can blame her though, the books were pretty good. The English version, I mean. The translations never did it justice."

Mrs. Evans furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, but Mr. Evans looked like he'd just caught a giant Northern Pike in a small, backyard creek.

"Potter? What do you know about a Potter?"

Dania paused. She blinked three times in rapid succession. "What?"

" Do you know anything about Lily's new boyfriend? Has she been sending you any messages? Is this 'Harry Potter' a brother or a cousin of his?" Mr. Evans grilled her, but Dania stopped listening to him when he said 'new boyfriend.'

"Do you mean... James Potter, by any chance?" Dania tentatively interrupted Mr. Evans's line of questioning.

"Who else?" he replied before turning back to reread the letter.

And with those two little words, Dania's world came crashing down for the second time in as many months.

"Fuck."

* * *

Dania was in the world of Harry Potter.

And not just any world of Harry Potter, THE world of Harry Potter. Not one of those theme parks with overpriced merchandise, but in the actual universe in which the actual Harry Potter resides in.

Or at least, this was the world her mind has created.

Perhaps a small part of her was excited by the prospect. To live out the fantasies of her middle school self of living in a world brimming with magic. To pet a Unicorn in real life, to throw on the infamous Cloak of Invisibility on herself, to down a bottle of liquid luck and buy a lottery ticket.

But a larger part of her, the one that was screaming bloody murder as tornado sirens blasted in the background, overpowered any feeling of glee and anticipation.

Because for whatever reason Dania was now living in a reality where magic existed, Hogwarts existed, and more importantly Death Eaters existed.

Dania excused herself from the table, leaving a steadily cooling plate of breakfast and two thoroughly confused adults behind. The Danish woman raced out of the kitchen and stormed up the stairs before sprinting down the hallway and locking herself in the bathroom.

She bent over with her hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath.

"No, no, no," She muttered to herself, "No, this is not happening. It cannot be happening."

But even as she said that Dania was mentally kicking herself.

How could she have been so stupid not to notice all of the clues? The British accents? The whole 70s setting? The fact that a guy named VERNON DURSLEY seemed to be hovering around every conversation she had for some stupid reason that no one wanted to explain to her? The fact that people insisted on calling her Petunia Evans rather than Dania Møller?

Petunia Evans.

Dania felt her muscles seizing up before she forced herself to take several deep breaths as she leaned against a wall and slid down to the floor.

She had replaced a fictional character.

One minute falling out of the sky in a giant ball of fire and then next taking over the life of a fictional character from a children's book series that Dania hadn't read in what, ten years?

This. Should. Not. Be. Happening.

Dania tilted her head back until she was staring at the ocean grey ceiling, and took several deep breaths.

She spread her fingers out wide as she pressed the palms of her hands against the cold marble tiles. She tilted to one side ever so slightly, letting her ear brush up against the soft cotton towel hanging from the towel rack.

It all felt real.

Should it feel that way?

Was she even dreaming at this point?

Dania shook her head.

Putting the whole 'How is this even remotely possible?' question aside, What was she supposed to do now?

According to the rest of this world, she was Petunia Evans. The powerless, muggle Petunia. The magic-hating, normal-obsessed Petunia. The same Petunia who was supposed to be Petunia Dursley but because of whatever ripples Dania had caused in this reality, it looked like Petunia was going to remain an Evans for the foreseeable future.

And that wasn't even touching on the fact that Petunia was one of the most terrible, and hated characters of the Harry Potter franchise.

Granted she wasn't the absolute worst. That honor rested with the pink toad of satan.

But with her stereotypical nosey housewife tendencies and her complete disregard for her nephews well being while at the same time spoiling her own son to the point of crafting a being of hatred and laziness, there really weren't all too many redeemable qualities in Petunia.

And now how did Dania fit into the picture?

There was no way in hell that she was ever going to marry a pig like Vernon Dursley. It wasn't on the table, it just wasn't. Dania would rather spend the rest of her life living next to a chicken processing plant rather than get married to that man.

But if Petunia Evans never got married to Vernon Dursley, then Dudley Dursley would never even exist.

And that just opened a whole new can of worms.

Dania never liked any of the Dursleys in the books or the movies, and that included Dudley. But here, in this world, the Dursleys weren't just characters. They were real people.

Meaning Dudley is- was- will be a real person. That is if he were to be born at all.

No Petunia Dursley meant no Dudley Dursley.

Did Dania even have that right? To deny his existence?

Dudley may not have been among them at that moment, but his life was spelled out in the books. He was supposed to grow up -albeit as a very spoiled brat- with two doting parents, he'd go to school, make friends, make enemies, he'd get a job, get married, have children of his own, have his own life.

Had she killed him off by not being with Vernon?

Dania gritted her teeth, pulled down the towel next to her and buried her face into it like an ostrich burying its face into the sand.

She was not going to subject herself to the torture of living with a man like Dursley. Not now, not ever.

Besides, this was still her dream, right? Dudley didn't have to exist if it was all just in her head. Who knew if the storyline her mind was weaving together was even going to follow the plot of Harry Potter.

The plot.

How was she going to deal with the plot?

Other than Dania everyone in this reality was a living breathing character born in the mind of J.K Rowling. Were the characters here the same ones Dania had grown up reading about? Was this storyline going to follow the book series or the movies?

Dania only had the chance to interact with Mr. and Mrs. Evans, two characters that barely got any mention at all in the Franchise. She couldn't tell if the couple downstairs were the same couple that was born in the mind of JK Rowling.

She knew that Lily Evans existed, Magic existed Hogwarts existed, and Owl mail was a thing. And Dania had to assume based off of these four factors that the Wizarding World existed as well.

But was the Lily that wrote the letter to Mr. and Mrs. Evans the same Lily that was going to marry James Potter, start a family with him, and then die before her son even turns two because of magical terrorists? Or did this Lily have an entirely different fate?

Did the Magic in this world follow the same rules and laws that Rowling had laid down? Or if this was all just Dania's head, did she determine what Magic can and cannot do? Did Witches and Wizards use wands like in the books or could they use a wide variety of different artifacts to channel their magic in this reality?

Was Hogwarts still a castle? Was the Hogwarts Express still the only way for students to get to campus? Did students get sorted into Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw or were the different houses named different?

And then there was Owl mail. Dania still hasn't figured out why the Wizarding World didn't just invent a Floo-like mailbox system that activated with a simple spell and so people would get their deliveries instantly. In all honesty, she was a bit annoyed that her fantasy world didn't just do that instead of following Rowling's decision to use owl mail as the primary form of communication for Witches and Wizards.

Dania groaned.

There were too many questions and not enough answers. She needed more information.

For now, Dania would run under the assumption that Rowling's word was law. Concerning the basic inner workings of the Harry Potter Universe. There was no telling how much the plot had deviated due to her apparently explosive fallout with Vernon Dursley.

Dania had no guarantee that the characters would react the same way with her presence here-

-A thought suddenly invaded the Danish woman's mind. A horrible, slimy thought that sent involuntary tremors running through her spine.

...If everyone was a character was she a character?

Oh god.

The woman's shoulders trembled for a moment before a quiet, yet hysterical laugh escaped her lips.

Was there someone out there pulling at her strings? Someone shaping every single situation she found herself in? Was someone dictating every action she took? Every word she had ever said? Every thought she ever had?

Was she nothing but a character for some unseen audience to watch and observe for the sake of entertainment?

Dania's laugh grew louder and louder until she was rolling around on the bathroom floor with her arms crossed over her chest like a dead pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

Someone knocked on the door, and Dania's crazed laughter died in her throat.

"Tuni-deary, are you ok?" Mrs. Evans's voice filtered through the locked door.

Dania was quiet for a moment before she propped her upper body up with her elbows and twisted herself around so that she was looking at the door.

"I'm fine!" Dania called out, resisting the urge to laugh at her own lie. "I just remembered a funny joke I heard on the Telly!"

* * *

A few measly hours later, Dania was rushed to the hospital after coming down with a sudden and unexpected fever of over 39.4 degrees Celsius. She was released the next day once the fever subsided with a whole new batch of medications and strict orders to immediately come back if she felt herself getting worse.

 **Author's Note:**

 **This chapter was written while listening to 'Oh Devil' by Electric Guest.**

 **Ok, first up for some housekeeping. I managed to post this chapter on time (and I'm super proud of myself- three chapters of the same story posted in a timely fashion? That's practically unheard of for me!) But I am currently unsure if I will be able to post next Saturday because I'm looking at the schedule for the week ahead and I can already tell I'm going to be swamped. The rough draft of the next chapter is mostly written already since most of it was originally going to be part of this chapter but as it was approaching the 5,000 word mark I decided to cut it in half, but editing takes a long time and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it before next Saturday. If I don't post next weekend I'll get you guys an extra long chapter four to make up for it.**

 **Other than that, thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a review, they really do mean a lot to me. Reviews are what motivate me to write so if you guys want more of this story, please consider leaving a comment about what you liked and what you didn't like, or just leave a little smiley face :D**

 **See you guys sometime in the near future!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


	4. Chapter 4

By the time October melted into November, everyone in Cokeworth knew about the tragedy that had befallen the Evans family.

The whispers, the rumors, and the casual "Hey, did you hear?" flew about the English town first as a light summer breeze. Then as time marched on, it grew momentum, it grew more powerful, it grew to the strength of Category 5 hurricane winds.

And once Halloween had come and gone, every single dog in the town had unwittingly overheard their owners whisper about the 'poor sick Evans daughter,' as they happily nommed on their dinner.

"I heard that her boyfriend attacked her in her own home."

"I heard that she got her head bashed into the walls after she rejected his proposal!"

"Really? I thought it was because she was cheating on him with his Business Rival."

"No no no, I'm fairly certain that they had already broken things off, but the boyfriend was still in love with her and lost it when he found out that she was seeing someone else. He didn't mean to hurt her, he did it out of love. I think it's a little romantic."

"That's not romantic! That's downright terrifying! I certainly hope that they are pressing charges."

The stories swirled and whirled about, and with each retelling, the story twisted and morphed into something new.

"I don't think there's anything actually wrong with her, we all know what kind of person Petunia is, she must playing things up for all the attention."

"Maybe. But I've seen an ambulance in front of the Evans house so many times in the last month, and there are doctors constantly coming and going. I think it might just be something serious."

"So she knocked her head up a little bit. I still say it's all being blown out of proportions."

The Cokeworth rumor mill churned and churned, with one Petunia Evans in the center of it all.

"The Moore family, you know the ones that live across from the Evans? They invited Mr. and Mrs. Evans over for supper one evening and extended the invitation to their daughter too. And they agreed! Mr. Moore told the entire office the next day that Petunia's mind is completely gone. The girl was just sitting at the dining room table, staring at nothing and babbling about like a baby."

"Well you know Mrs. Chapman? The piano teacher who's a bit too interested in Mrs. William's husband? Yes, yes the one with the awful haircut. She says that Petunia hit her head and woke up being able to speak fluent Norwegian of all things. You see her brother's friend has a cousin at University whose flatmate is from Norway. And when Mrs. Chapman heard Petunia speak it sounded a bit like the language that the man spoke."

"That's a load of bull. When have you ever heard of someone waking up being able to speak a completely different language? If that were the case, everyone would be bashing in their heads and let me tell you, that is not going to make them any smarter."

There was no stopping the gossip from flying from one mouth to another. No one could resist wondering, theorizing, and speculating on the mysterious case that is Petunia Evans. And in this particular case, time did not quell the queries, the suspicions, and the juicy rumors.

The more Petunia stayed out of the public eye, the more Mr. and Mrs. Evans covertly ferried her to and from the hospital, the more professional looking people showed up at the Evans household, the more the town hounded for answers to the completely out of the ordinary situation happening on their doorsteps.

Answers that they would never get.

* * *

"Alright, you two!" Mrs. Evans clapped her hands together loud enough to startle the other two occupants of the house.

Mr. Evans ripped his eyes away from the television, and Dania glanced up from her novel.

"You can't spend the rest of your lives indoors, just look at how beautiful it is outside!" Mrs. Evans continued, sashaying into the living room and gesturing at the large window.

"Hmmm," Mr. Evans hummed, turning around in his spot on the couch. He looked up and down the lacey curtains. "Yes, it most certainly is beautiful out." and then he turned right back around and continued watching his program.

Dania returned to her book without uttering a word.

And Mrs. Evans huffed out in growing irritation. She opened her mouth to shoot her husband with a fiery retort but paused.

She snapped her mouth shut and waltzed down the stairs to the basement without Mr. Evans or Dania even living room of the Evans household was silent for a few scant moments, save for the sound emitting from the television.

One of the main character's in Mr. Evans favorite daytime soap opera crying because her boyfriend cheated on her with her sister who had supposedly died three years prior in a hang glider accident but now leaning against the wall with a tequila in hand a few paces away watching the main character and the boyfriend trading verbal blows.

As sobs and hiccups wreaked the main character's frame, she turned to look into her unabashed boyfriend's eyes. Tears were flowing freely down her cheek as the music intensified.

"H-how could you, Adam?" The main character cried, wrapping her arms around her chest. "After everything we've been through together?"

But the boyfriend wasn't fazed. In fact, his face twisted into a scowl. "After everything, we've been through together?" he asked, mocking the main character's words. "After all of the lies, cold shoulders, the avoiding, and all the other men you've seen lately? Yes, I know all about those Tuesday 'Girls night out' with Frederick from the pet store. You're not pulling the wool over my eyes."

Mr. Evans's eyes went wide as he leaned forward, wholly engrossed in the storyline.

The main character gasped and overdramatically clutched her heart as if it were causing her physical pain. "Adam, you have it all wrong-"

" _I_ have it all wrong, Louise? Well, what have I gotten wrong here? Please, explain to me why you've been coming home so late every night. Why you have the smell of men's cologne on your shirt. Explain to me why Jane saw you kissing Frederick through his storefront display window?!"

"I never kissed Freddie-"

"Oh, so it's _Freddie_ now?" The boyfriend interrupted with a snarl.

The main character burst into tears and cried out, "Adam, listen to me! I'm-"

And then the power went out.

"NOOOO! Come on come on come on!" Mr. Evans yelled, furiously pressing buttons on the remote before dashing up behind the television itself to make sure everything was plugged in correctly. "What was Louise going to say? WHAT WAS SHE GOING TO SAY?"

"You know these types of shows are incredibly predictable?" Dania spoke, lowering her sunglasses on her nose as she glared at the darkened lamp she had been using as a reading light.

"So? That doesn't mean it's not entertaining." Mr. Evans shot back as he frantically adjusted the bunny antennas.

And suddenly, all motion stopped. Mr. Evans let his hands drop down to his sides, and Dania closed her book.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Two pairs of eyes darted to the partially opened door down the hallway.

"I warned you two that you couldn't spend your lives indoors," Mrs. Evans said in a sing-song voice as she emerged from the basement of the house, "Now, instead of wasting precious daylight, how about we all enjoy the break in the cold weather with a nice, relaxing walk down to the park?"

"But-" Mr. Evans started, only to be interrupted with a sudden glare from his wife. He clamped his mouth shut, then sighed deeply. "Alright Honey. Come on Tuni-dear, get your coat on."

Dania for her part didn't bother protesting. She merely slid her book onto the coffee table and rose to her feet. "So where are we going?"

"I was thinking about the one that stretches along the river, it may be a bit of a lengthy walk to get there, but exercise is good for the soul." Mrs. Evans replied and then she paused, "However if you don't think you can make it that far, we can always make it a quick walk around the neighborhood." she finished, turning to address her daughter.

"No, I'm feeling better than usual today, I think I can make it." Dania responded in her odd Scandinavian accent, "I'll go find my hat and mittens."

* * *

Dr. William Benson was practically vibrating with manic energy as he knocked on the door of one of the numerous, identical buildings in a quiet neighborhood close to downtown Cokeworth.

He didn't need to wait more than a few moments before the lady of the household graciously opened the door and ushered him, and his two assistants in.

And then it was just a simple matter of falling into a routine. Mrs. Evans would offer him some afternoon tea like a proper hostess, Dr. Benson would politely decline, seeing as this was not a recreational visit. Mrs. Evans would then lead Dr. Benson and his entourage into the dining room where his patient Petunia Evans sat ready and waiting at one end of the long mahogany table.

"Good afternoon, Miss. Evans. I hope you're feeling well today. Are you experiencing any symptoms right now?"

The woman nodded in greeting, as she always did, and then looked down at Dr. Benson's suitcase.

"I had a massive headache this morning when I woke up, and it took me a couple of hours before I could get out of bed. But after lunch, it got better, though I still needed my sunglasses indoors." His patient replied in her newly developed Danish accent.

Dr. Benson hummed and made a note to look over Miss Evans's dosages. "Well, it's good to hear that there are some improvements. How about we start today off with some memory exercises?"

* * *

She asked Mr. Evans to drive her to an art supply store one crisp autumn day when the whispers of ice and frost decorated the dying grass outside.

The older man readily agreed, and then a few days later on a chilly Saturday morning she drove her to a tiny, tucked away crafts store in the center of town.

Dania let herself run loose, collecting sketchbooks, writing journals, trace paper, pencils, ballpoint pens, highlighters, markers, erasers, and after a few minutes of consideration she threw in some watercolors and watercolor paper. Just for fun.

When they had returned Dania scurried up to her room, drew the curtains shut, turned on her ambient lights, pulled her sunglasses off and settled herself down at her freshly decluttered desk.

Dania dug into one of the shopping bags she had propped up against her chair and fished out one of the more expensive ballpoint pens as well as one of the blank writing journals.

And she began to write, tackling one of her first questions.

Harry Potter was left on Petunia Dursley's front door for a reason. There was no one in the family left alive to take him in according to Albus Dumbledore. Did that mean that the couple downstairs -the same couple who affectionately teased each other and spend their evenings quietly reading on the couch together- were going to die at some point in the next four years or so?

No, Dania could not let that happen. She will not let that happen.

Fictional universe or not, they took care of her while she was in the hospital, and then welcomed her into their home without a second thought. Sure they thought that she was their daughter, but Dania certainly didn't act like how she imagined a twenty-something-year-old Petunia to behave, and they must have noticed that.

At the very least, she owed them for their hospitality and warmth.

What could she remember about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Harry Potter's maternal Grandparents?

The answer was not much. Just that they were supposed to die normal muggle deaths.

That was such a cold and indifferent term.

Normal muggle deaths.

What constituted a normal Muggle death? Old age? Cancer? Shooting? Car accident? Natural Disaster?

JK Rowling's definition of 'normal muggle deaths' was so incredibly vague it could literally be anything.

Dania liked to think that she had a full proof plan. That she had accounted and made contingency plans for everything. She had read the Harry Potter books so many time, both in Danish and English, that she had more than enough forewarning to prepare for the upcoming storm.

But she had no idea how they were supposed to die.

All she knew was that sometime between now and 1981, Mr. and Mrs. Evans- the parents of Lily and Petunia Evans- the Grandparents of the famous Boy-Who-Lived, were going to die.

And it was going to be a normal Muggle death.

But that couldn't be right. Mr. and Mrs. Evans seemed to be like two perfectly healthy adult. In fact, neither of them had even hit the age of 50. Both of them were still in their late 40s.

Dania didn't want to admit it, but she was utterly shocked to learn that Mr. Evans had only recently celebrated his 48th birthday just ten days before Dania woke up in this world.

He looked so much older than 48. Mrs. Evans too, who was only 47. Both of them were younger than even Dania's real parents.

She mutely wondered if it was because of all of the stress she'd caused since waking up in their daughter's body.

But the point still stands. Mr. and Mrs. Evans couldn't die of old age in such a short amount of time.

And besides, what could cause not one but two people to killed off? Certainly not natural causes.

The Danish woman spun her pen around in her hand and brought it down against the paper to create a T chart. On one side she wrote down possible ways the Evans couple could perish within the next couple of years, and then on the other side, she wrote down what she could do to help them avoid those deaths.

She delegated about half an hour to this problem. Juggling the pros and cons of one solution over another, marking down half-baked thoughts in the margins, and creating diagrams next to each individual paragraph.

Dania glanced over her work and nodded in satisfaction.

Then she flipped to a fresh page and titled it: "Jobs."

She needed to get a job.

There was no getting around it, Dania couldn't rely on Mr. and Mrs. Evans forever. And given that there were currently no plans to get married or become a dependent in the future, Dania was going to have to figure out how to get a stable income.

Of course, she did have a BA in Economics so that should at least help her out in the 1970s job market to some extent. She could keep a lookout for jobs in the classified ads in the papers, maybe something as an Accountant or Financial Analyst…

...A beat passed.

Suddenly, Dania dropped her head against the table and forced herself to resist the urge to slam her head against the wooden surface repeatedly.

She had no proof that she'd earned an undergraduate degree. Dania had forgotten entirely that while her mind and consciousness may have transferred over to Petunia, Dania's credentials hadn't.

Meaning unless she could somehow figure out how to reverse this whole situation, four arduous years of hard work, sweat, and tears had all been for nothing.

All of that time, all of that energy she had spent studying, studying, and studying until her brain felt like mush. All of that and she had nothing to show for.

Dania wasn't even sure if Petunia Evans had a higher education. Meaning that her job prospects just got a whole lot narrower, and she probably wasn't even going to be able to make as much money as she could have.

Besides, Dania knew Petunia had a job as some sort of secretary or clerk. That's how she met Vernon after all, they worked at the same company.

But Dania's stint in the hospital and the enormous recovery time her doctors had delegated to her caused her to lose that job. But to be perfectly honest, Dania was relieved that this was the case even though that meant she was left unemployed.

If she'd been able to keep that job, she ran the risk of running into Vernon and given their recent track record together, a meeting between them at this point in time would most likely turn out explosive.

Yes, she was better off losing that job. Even if it meant she was going to have to start pouring through the classified section of the newspaper since the ease of the internet didn't exist yet.

Dania brainstormed a few ideas for the kind of jobs she could take.

Obviously, clerical work was on the list given that Petunia already had a history with that career. She put 'barista' down as well, given that she had experience working in cafes when she was still in Uni. After giving it a couple of moments of thought, Dania added 'retail' and 'waitress' too.

And then, very hesitantly, Dania wrote 'taxes' and circled it. A career in doing other people's taxes would undoubtedly pay well, she had ample knowledge of the Danish and American tax systems so the system employed by the United Kingdom should be easy to understand, and you didn't need to have a higher education to get such a job.

Dania inhaled and let out a deep, dog-like sigh, and rubbed her eyes.

She glanced over at the wall clock in her room. It was almost 3 o'clock. One of her psychologists were supposed to stop by today to test her Danish reading comprehension skills.

The Danish woman groaned at the thought and looked back down at her notes for a moment. In one motion, she stood up out of her chair, closed the journal, and slipped it behind her wardrobe for safe keeping.

* * *

 _Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise_

 _Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday_

 _You got mud on your face, you big disgrace_

 _Kicking your can all over the place_

Dania sang her heart out as she scrubbed the dish in her hand. She bobbed her head in time with the music as she rinsed the plate off, plopped it onto the drying rack and reached for one of the metal bowls sitting in the sink.

 _We will, we will rock you_

 _We will, we will rock you_

Today was one of her good days. She woke up with absolutely no problem, her light sensitivity issues weren't as bad that morning given that it was dark and raining outside and the light inside the house wasn't bothering her as much as it usually did.

Her headache was mild, and compared to some of the other days it was almost barely noticeable.

So, in an initiative to seize the day and not let her moment of good health go to waste, she volunteered to pick up some extra chores around the house. Mrs. Evans allowed her to do the dusting, and after Dania finished that she moved on to doing the dishes.

And to fuel her happy mood, Dania asked to borrow Mr. Evans's Cassette Deck, and while he was at work, she set it up in the living room. Now it was going through a playlist of all of the latest hits Mr. Evans had recorded from the radio in his free time.

Dania couldn't help but chuckle a little. She never thought she'd get to experience listening to Queen when they were still a relatively fresh, and newly formed band.

 _Buddy, you're a young man, hard man_

 _Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday_

 _You got blood on your face, you big disgrace_

 _Waving your banner all over the place_

"Petunia!" Mrs. Evans called out suddenly from the other side of the house.

Dania could hear the sounds of the older woman's feet pounding on the creaky wooden floors of the stairs before she could even turn the water off.

"Yes?" Dania answered as she wiped her hands on her apron and turned around to meet the excited gaze of Mrs. Evans.

"Oh Tuni-dear, I have some great news!" Mrs. Evans practically squealed as she waved something in her hand.

Dania's eyes drifted over to Mrs. Evans's waving appendage. The Dane let a small smile grace her face. "Well? Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to leave me here to wonder?" she said in amusement.

"Look, look! You're sister just sent us an owl! She's going to be coming home for the holidays, and she'll be bringing her new boyfriend too!"

Dania's mind went completely blank, and she could only stare as Mrs. Evans began waltzing around the kitchen, dancing to the beat of the music holding the letter high in the air for the world to see.

 _We will, we will rock you_

 _We will, we will rock you_

 **Author's Note:**

 **This chapter was written while listening to _100 Bad Days_ by AJR and _We Will Rock You_ by Queen.**

 **The song _We Will Rock You by Queen_ is used in a portions of this chapter. Obviously, I do not own the song and I am making no profit off of this fanfiction therefore I am not making a profit off of the use of this song in this fic.**

 **Hey everyone, I'm a couple days late with this chapter, (I did warn you guys that it may be late, I had a really long week.) But, hey this chapter is a little bit longer than the last one by about 500 words so does that count as made up for? Anyway, Next chapter will be up on some time either Saturday or Sunday. I'm not exactly sure when because I am officially out of prewritten material and historically speaking when I run out of prewritten material, updates get super random. But I'm going to try to stick to the schedule that I have managed to establish here.**

 **Quick shout out to thedarksun_writes on AO3 for helping me out with the Danish back in Chapter 2, I have now corrected the mistakes they pointed out.**

 **Thank you everyone who reviewed and see you all next week!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


	5. Chapter 5

December has always been Dania's favorite. It was the last month of the year, when Autumn was finally transitioning into Winter, and the Holiday season comes steamrolling in.

The holidays were the biggest reason why she liked December so much. No matter where she was in the world, Denmark or the States, Dania could find magic and wonder all around her. In the red and green decorations that would spring up all around her and in the soft Christmas music lulled her into a sense of peace.

In San Francisco, Dania celebrated by going to the tree lighting ceremony at Union Square, shopping for presents and Christmas themed goodies at the mall, watching the Lighted Boat Parade at Pier 39, eating a crazy amount of chocolate from Ghirardelli if she gave in to the desire to splurge.

Her favorite thing to do was to go out at night to look at all of the houses with intricate holiday displays with her two roommates Maggie and Genevieve. They were the first Americans Dania had ever met during orientation in her freshman year of University. They had stuck together like glue since the first day, helping each other survive college and in Dania's case, helped her figure out how to live in a foreign country. Even after they all had graduated, the three of them had stayed close and eventually moved in together to survive San Francisco's ridiculously pricey housing market.

And it was absolutely worth it. They lived in a fairly small but nice apartment, in a nice neighborhood that just went all in for the Christmas season. Those houses were truly a sight to behold. With hedges and trees wrapped in multicolored lights; inflatable Santas, reindeer, and presents standing guard in the front lawns; blindingly bright christmas lights hanging from the edges of the roofs; and red, green, and white ribbons just thrown around everywhere. Dania loved fawning over all of the unique and interesting designs, and ranking them from best to greatest-of-all-time with her friends.

Then every year, on the Saturday before Christmas day, Dania would pack her carry-on bag and make the eleven hour journey from the American west coast to the capital of Denmark. She would always try her best to book a non-stop flight, but occasionally she'd have layovers. Stopping in Detroit, in Newark, in Boston, and even one time in London. Her parents always met her at the airport, ready and waiting to give her two big, warm hugs. Then they'd drive her to her childhood home through the frosty weather.

Christmas in Denmark meant working in the family business, when Dania and her parents doubled down in December to tackle the holiday rush at its peak. She'd spend her days arranging complex bouquets of flowers that she had carefully tailored to fit the aesthetic of the season. She'd run the cash register, answer phone calls, welcome customers, and help clean up the store when she could. It made the work load on her parents so much lighter, and Dania was happy to help if it meant that her parents got a well deserved break.

Then after a long day at the shop, Dania would help her parents close up and they would all go home to their little apartment a few blocks away. There she'd spend cold, snowy winter nights with her parents. They'd eat Æbleskiver topped with powdered sugar and jam, and wash it down with a warm mug of Gløgg. All while paper star lanterns hung above them from the ceiling, and the Christmas Calendar TV show playing on the TV in the background.

Dania was thoroughly convinced that December was the greatest time of the year.

* * *

Christmas of 1977 in the fictional town of Cokeworth, England was different from all of the other Christmases Dania had experienced. And not in a good way.

She felt nothing as she watched the house she was living in was transformed. None of the joy, none of the excitement, and none of the merriment that came with the Holiday season.

November turned into December, and as Christmas day approached like a gargantuan slug, Mr. and Mrs. Evans dove head-first into the deep end of the festive spirit.

Two whole stacks of boxes labeled 'Christmas' appeared in the first week of the final month of the year. Mrs. Evans had clambered into the attic that the family used as storage space, and pulled down everything that they owned that was related to the holiday. Which amounted to roughly six boxes and a wicker-basket filled to the brim with Christmas decorations of all kinds.

Every day, when Mr. Evans would come home from work, the two of them would band together and begin the preparations. Unpacking shimmering garlands, plastic reindeer figurines, pristine cardboard snowflakes, strings of Christmas lights, and delicate glass ornaments, just to name a few. The house turned into a genuine Christmas wonderland, like something out of a Christmas edition of one of Mr. Evans's clothing catalogs he got in the mail.

Mrs. Evans would rummage around one of the boxes, loudly gasp and bring one dainty hand to her cheek as she pulled out some handmade decoration whether it was a paper with macaroni art or a popsicle stick ornament, look over at Dania and say:

"Look, Tuni, look! Remember when you made this in primary school? Ooooh, you were so happy when you brought it home! Look, look, look here! It's the snowmen paper chains you made when you were ten!"

Or something along those lines.

And Dania would smile politely and nod, making noises of agreement to whatever Mrs. Evans said. But Dania had never made those crafts. She had never been a crafty person, not even when she was in Primary School. She had much preferred to help put up the decorations rather than making the decorations themselves.

Mr. Evans would busy himself with rearranging the house, moving furniture to accommodate the biggest Christmas tree that could fit in the living that he planned to buy. Whenever he moved the couch, moved the coffee table, or moved a lamp, he would look fondly at Dania and say:

"Remember when you and your sister would set your alarm clocks for four o'clock in the morning and jumping on your mother's and my bed to wake us up right before you two raced down the stairs to open presents?"

Or something along those lines.

Dania's heart would throb in pain, then she would laugh and tell him that she did remember. Only she didn't. She never woke up at four in the morning on Christmas to wake up her parents up before opening up presents. To Dania, Christmas was the time to take things slow, sleep in, relax, and then her family would open up presents right before the morning melted into the afternoon.

It hurt to look at the couple as they set about working on getting the house in order and preparing for the return of their daughter from Hogwarts. It hurt to see all of the decorations, half of which were still in the boxes, and the other half strewn about the room in organized chaos. It hurt to hear of all of these family traditions that Petunia was once a part of. Of the traditions that the real Petunia would never get to experience again.

It was miserable for Dania to see all of this Christmas cheer around her, but knowing that she didn't belong here. That the women who should have been here instead of her were not

The Evans didn't seem to notice. They didn't even seem to suspect that anything was amiss with Dania. If they did catch onto the fact that Dania had none of Petunia's memories, they never commented on it or even turned their attention to it.

And Dania would feel this strange combination of perpetual imposter syndrome as well as a dull nothingness that throbbed just underneath her skin.

They should have noticed something by now. They should have seen that Dania wasn't Petunia. That the girl who lived with them didn't have any actual childhood memories of their household. That she didn't know what they were talking about inside jokes and references that only a member of the Evans family would know. That their daughter was gone and in her place stood a stranger who spoke English like it was her second language and spent more time in the hospital than at home.

It should have become increasingly obvious when Dania couldn't share her own supposed 'treasured memories' of spending Christmas Eve in front of a roaring fire together with Lily. When she couldn't talk about last year's Christmas where Mr. Evans and Lily apparently started a neighborhood-wide snowball fight with the neighborhood children that was the talk of the town. When she couldn't even remember what spot the Christmas tree was supposed to go even though it was always placed in the same area every December for the last two and a half decades.

Any day now, her cover would be blown. Any day and they'll see her for what she truly was. A fraud. Mr. and Mrs. Evans should have realized that something was wrong with the woman that they thought was their daughter.

They didn't, and Dania couldn't fathom why. But she didn't dare say anything about it. She didn't even know how to begin to explain her circumstances.

But Dania didn't know how much longer she'd have a choice in the matter. The clock was ticking. Lily Evans was coming home.

Just thinking of the witch's name made Dania's stomach churn unpleasantly.

In a world where magic ran rampant on the fringes of the known society, where potions could physically transform you into someone else, Dania was under no illusion that she would last long under scrutiny. She was certain that the moment an honest-to-god witch laid eyes on her, Dania would be exposed.

So she stayed distant, and almost as a reflex, she cut her interactions with Mr. and Mrs. Evans down. Only as much as she could without tipping them off that she was actively trying to avoid them.

Dania didn't help them with their decorating. Instead, she watched from the sidelines.

She'd peer into the living room from her seat at the kitchen table as wreaths were delicately placed on each door in the house. As little bells were hung over the numerous framed pictures on the walls. As garlands were wrapped around the wooden railings of the stairs. As the evergreen tree was placed by the fireplace, and decorated with strings of golden Christmas lights and delicate silver ornaments.

The most Dania contributed was untangling the Christmas lights. Something she did in the safety of her room. Away from growing Christmas wonderland on the main floor of the house.

Then something changed.

At first, Dania was doing it out of the sense that she did not truly belong among the Evans couple during such an intimate family activity. But then it started getting harder and harder for her to push herself out of bed in the morning. It became harder for her to tolerate the bright Christmas lights that decorated the house inside and out. It became harder for her to keep her food down as the smell of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and other spices associated with holiday pastries and cooking assaulted her from the kitchen.

It just kept getting worse and worse.

"Two more weeks until Lily comes home!" Mrs. Evans sang out as she waltzed around the living room. "Do you think she'd like to have some Yorkshire pudding as part of her first meal back? Because I think I ought to make some for my little Lily-flower."

Mr. Evans snorted, "Of course Lily would want pudding, she loves that stuff more than you like making it." Then he paused. "Are you alright, Petunia?" Mr. Evans asked in concern.

He stood by the front door near the bottom of the stairs. He was all dressed up to go to work, holding his suitcase in his hand, wearing his thick woolen coat, and a warm hat with ear flaps on his head.

Dania stood at the top of the stairs, looking down but not quite seeing the floor. One hand was pressed against the wall while the other clutched the rail. She could feel acid slowly creeping up her esophagus.

"Petunia?" Mrs. Evans asked, stepping over to stand by her husband. The happily carefree expression completely wiped away from her face.

"I'm fine," Dania said, her voice sounding raspy and unused. Then she quickly shut her mouth as her stomach suddenly felt like it was caving in on itself. Her health was getting worse. Dania hadn't felt this bad since she first came back from the hospital back in September.

Mr. Evans did not look convinced. "You are not fine. You don't even look like you can make it down the stairs in that state."

"I can." Dania insisted. Then she took a wobbly step forward, then another. Then another. Then another.

And then Dania saw a burst of bright light flood her vision on the fifth step down and she lost consciousness.

Dania was later told in the hospital that she had been saved from getting a severe concussion only because Mr. Evans was there to catch her as she fell down the stairs. Once she woke up, her doctors decided that it would be best that she stays there for a few days while she recovered, incase there were any unforeseen complications in her delicate state.

And the hospitalization did help. Dania got the nutrients that she lacked through an I.V., and she was under the attentive care of a small army of nurses. At the very least, Dania's digestive issues were more or less cleared up by the time she was deemed healthy enough to return to the Evans home.

For about a week, Dania felt great. Better than she had since December had begun. Whatever stomach bug she had caught was gone, and she could return to her established routine.

But then the day had come. When Lily Evans was to come home with her new boyfriend. Things only got worse for Dania.

* * *

Mr. Evans had left for London. His destination: Kings Cross Railway Station.

The final preparations were on their way. Mrs. Evans was furiously moving around the kitchen, running from one end to the other, preparing a massive 'Welcome home' dinner for her returning daughter.

Dania had been shooed away from the kitchen, partially so that Mrs. Evans didn't trip over her in her cooking whirlwind, and partly so that Dania could work on setting the table.

"I've already put all of the plates, bowls, cutlery, and napkins that we'll need on the chairs," Mrs. Evans said with a gentle nudge into the dining room. "All you have to do is organize it and make it pretty for Lily and her boyfriend!"

Dania grimaced involuntarily as a bolt of pain shot through the back of her head. "Alright, but I don't think I'll be able to make it 'pretty.'"

"That's alright Tuni-dear," Mrs. Evans reassured her, "As long as-

"-the forks go on the left side of the dinner plate, and the knives and spoons go on the right side," Dania finished, having heard this spiel more times than she cared to count. Mrs. Evans gave her a big, bold smile.

"Very good! As long as you do that, you are granted complete creative freedom! Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to take the turkey out of the oven!" And with that, Mrs. Evans disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving Dania by herself in the adjacent dining room.

And Dania was stuck. The woman couldn't make herself move forward and get to work.

She couldn't make herself pick up the folded red and gold table cloth and properly lay it out on the table. She couldn't make herself arrange the five dinner plates by each chair. She couldn't make herself set the silverware out, exactly how Mrs. Evans liked.

Dania just. Couldn't find it in herself to make her feet move. Just the thought of having to do anything made her ever-persistent headache worse.

She didn't know why the thought of setting the table for this particular evening made her feel so reluctant and heavy. This was something that she did on a nightly basis. It was one of the few tasks that Dania was allowed to do so long as she wasn't completely bed-ridden or in the hospital again.

The woman stood still and stiff as she stared down at the stack of plates. What was so different about this? Was it because of Lily-

A chill ran down Dania's spine. It shook her out of her frozen state and caused her to absentmindedly rub her right forearm to bring a little bit of warmth back to it.

Was it because Lily was going to arrive soon with James? Why did that matter? This was just getting absolutely ridiculous at this point.

Dania gritted her teeth together and glanced at the wall clock hanging on the opposite wall. If she concentrated hard enough, she could even hear the soft ticking noise the clock produced over the sound of the beater spinning, the pots clattering, and Mrs. Evans's loud rendition of 'Jingle Bells' that flooded the house.

One more hour until Mr. Evans was expected to return. Dania still had some time. She could do this. And with a deep breath, Dania forced herself to walk to the end of the table. She grabbed hold of the table cloth and began to do her part in the preparations for the night's feast.

It didn't take long before she was lost in the rhythmic work. She'd set this table so many times before, it was easy to melt back into the routine. Other than the fact that she was setting out plates for two additional people, and that Dania was handling Mrs. Evans's special dining set that only came out for special occasions, it was as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Dania was putting down the last wine glass when she felt her skin prickle on the back of her neck. Dread pooled in her stomach. She looked up and caught sight of a flash of bright red that shone vibrantly against the dark night through the window.

The dread sloshed around within her, swirling and twisting around until she felt nauseous. Her breath suddenly came up too short, too shallow, and she couldn't get enough air to fill her lungs fast enough. The sounds of Mrs. Evans moving around the kitchen were drowned out by a shrill ring that echoed in Dania's ears. Tiny white, grey, and black squiggles erupted in her vision, dancing around as her head felt light enough to simply float away from her shoulders the moment a soft breeze brushed against her.

Her head was pounding. Like a freight train had smashed right through her mind.

Dania started swaying, and she was vaguely aware that her hand shot out and grabbed the nearest chair to stabilize herself. As the woman took several desperately deep breaths, she lowered herself to sit down.

There were muffled murmurs from outside. Three knocks. A jingle of keys. A yelp of delight from the kitchen. And a painful stab through Dania's brain.

The door opened.

 **Author's Note:**

 **Ok, this update is late. Really late. And I apologize for that. I kind of stopped writing for a while, and I've only just gotten back into writing during the month of October. For the last couple of weeks I've been working on other projects including several One-Shots, and a new multi chaptered fic, and of course this story. At first I wanted to get the entire dinner scene with Lily and James out of the way in this chapter but then I realized that there was just too much going on to adequately cover in less than 4,000 words, so I split it into two chapters. But hey, the good news is that the next chapter is more than halfway done, so there shouldn't be another eight month break between updates.**

 **And seriously, thank you guys for all of the positive comments, favorites, and follows. It really means a lot to know that you all are enjoying my work.**

 **Until next time!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


	6. Chapter 6

"-and that's when Sirius got the pixie stuck in his right nostril, then he was the one flailing around. Remus was about as useful as a cheap sickle-store quality Spell-Checking quill. Since he was busy hyperventilating about flushing McGonagall's reading glasses down the toilet, he really couldn't help out with the Sirius situation. And then that's when Peter lost his grip on the potion and dropped it in the bowl while he was trying to stop the miniature sharknado he had accidentally conjured. The potion got absorbed into the flour mixture, so on top of all of that, now we had to deal with a sentient gelatinous mass of goo screaming bloody murder. And get this, the first thing it did was try to straight-up _eat_ me and…" James trailed off.

"...and you're not listening." he finished after a moment of pause.

There was a beat of silence in the train car.

"Hmm?" Lily Evans glanced up, breaking out of her dazed trance when she realized her boyfriend had stopped talking. "Sorry, what was that?"

James Potter just looked at her, "Nothing, just talking about what happened last Tuesday."

"Oh," she said before wrinkling her nose. "When you guys tried to make pancakes for breakfast or the plot to turn all of the professors into frogs that sound like American cowboys in the evening?"

"The pancake thing," James responded easily.

The wind whistled outside as the Hogwarts Express pressed through a late December snowstorm. The furious flurries against the darkened sky created a perfect backdrop for the orange lanterns inside the train to illuminate the cabin with a warm and gentle glow.

The annual two weeks Holiday Break had begun at Hogwarts, and Lily Evans was bringing her boyfriend home to meet her family for the first time.

They sat on the same plush bench in a small compartment in the middle of the train. Lily sat by the window, her head tilted at a slight downward angle as she leaned it against the insulated walls. A large, thick, sky-blue blanket spilled over her shoulders and draped across the form of James Potter, who lay on the bench with his legs dangling off one end and his head resting in her lap.

James twirled his glasses around in one hand while Lily absentmindedly ran her fingers through his hair. A comfortable silence fell upon the two occupants of the train car.

And then

"Alright, what's bugging you? You're usually never this distracted when I'm telling you about the inner workings of the Marauders." James said, breaking the quiet. His eyes locked onto Lily's face.

The girl in question groaned and massaged her temples. "Am I being that obvious?"

"Yup." James said, popping the 'p.' "So spill. What's eating you? Is it the fact that I'm meeting your parents for the first time? I swear I'll be on my best behavior. No pranking, no back-talking, no swearing, no nothing. I won't even mention magic if that's what you want. I'll be the greatest boyfriend that you've ever brought home."

"No, no, it's not that" Lily reassured him, "My parents are going to love you. It's just… my sister…" She trailed off, not entirely sure how to continue that sentence.

Almost instantaneously, James's face twisted and scrunched together as if he ate an entire lemon in one bite. "The one kept sending all of those nasty letters at the beginning of September before dropping off the face of the earth?"

"They weren't nasty!" Lily defended as if it were a reflex. "And she didn't drop off the face of the earth either. She just stopped writing." She added as an afterthought.

James gave her a deadpan stare. "I was there when you were reading them. She called you an ungrateful freak of nature. Multiple times."

Lily broke eye contact and shifted her gaze out the window. "Well… Petunia doesn't always word things kindly. She can be rather bitter if she wants to be.."

"Bitter?" James said with a snort, "I don't think that's a strong enough word to describe her. She sounds more like an asshole."

Lily snapped her head around, "Don't say that, you haven't even met her before!"

"She called you a freak! Even if Petunia is your sister, how is that remotely ok?" Her boyfriend said, getting more and more agitated.

A small smile worked its way onto Lily's face. "Alright, Petunia may not be a pleasant person," she conceded, "But she's still my older sister. That has to count for something, right? Just promise me that you'll give her a chance when you meet her, she's been through a lot recently."

James was quiet for a moment. "How is she doing?" he finally asked.

"Improving. At least, that's what my parents said in their last letter. She stayed at the muggle hospital near our house for a few days, but it looks like she's doing alright now. Tuni hasn't sent me anything since the accident, but Mum and Dad are keeping a close eye on her."

"Do you think that she'll be at the train station?"

Now it was Lily's turn to pause. "I don't know. Probably not, she's never met me at Kings Station before, so I don't think that she'll start now, especially when she's sick as she is. I know my father will be there, though, so you'll get to meet him first."

"And he'll be the first one I'll win over with my Potter-charm!" James exclaimed with the most adorable little grin Lily had ever seen.

The seventeen-year-old girl barked out a laugh. "I'm sure he will, Rudolph. Dad loves a good Christmas classic."

"I wear a clown nose when I'm in my stag form _ONE_ time-!"

* * *

Lily couldn't tell if she was excited enough to be going home for Christmas break that butterflies were fluttering around in her stomach, or so nervous that her internal organs were tying themselves up in knots.

She had managed to pinpoint the reason for her turbulent emotions to two key facts.

The first? She was bringing home her first boyfriend home to meet her family. And that boyfriend happened to be James Potter. The same boy she had spent most of her academic career at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry sending home angry, ranting letters on how he was a complete menace who bullied people, and kept trying to get her to date him with cheesy pick up-lines that never worked until they did.

Up until they had a chance to spend more time with each other as Head Boy and Head Girl of Gryffindor that year, Lily really did not build up a good rapport for him to her parents. They didn't really say anything when she first announced that she had started dating Jame at the beginning of October, other than some congratulatory words from her father and a few celebration chocolates from her mother.

So theoretically, the trip should be fine.

But Lily had a deep sense of foreboding that this visit home was not going to go as smoothly as she expected. She had a feeling that the nightmare of her sister's horrible end to her relationship was still weighing heavy on her parents heads when Lily made that first announcements, and they were too overwhelmed to properly process the news. They may or may not be as receptive when they come face to face with Lily's decision in person.

And that was the other thing. Her sister.

Lily's sister was going to be there.

She knew her relationship with Petunia was strained at best, and antagonistic at worst. As the years had gone by, and the two of them went on their own separate paths in life, a wall had been constructed between them that she couldn't seem to break down no matter what she did.

Lily remembered the days when she and her sister would roam around their neighborhood, creating fairytale worlds, and ruling the land all the way to the playground like Primary school-aged royals. With Petunia as the noble Queen of the Schoolyard, and Lily at her side as the Brave Princess of Chimneys.

The chimney thing was a phase. A result of being completely enamoured as a child by the idea that Santa Claus could fit through any chimney to deliver christmas presents. Not to mention the death defying stunts of the chimney sweeper from Mary Poppins that completely dumbfounded her as a kid. The choreography for the song "Step in Time" alone was enough to make Lily constantly humming the tune of the song years after she had first seen the movie.

She lost her goddamn mind when she discovered that the Floo Network was a method of transportation that existed in the Wizarding World. At this point every single one of Lily's friends have gotten sick of her singing ' _Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, chim chim cher-ee'_ every time they used the Floo service.

But Lily was getting ahead of herself.

The point was, that the close relationship that she had with Petunia was gone. The sisters who were thick as thieves were no more. Dashed into nothingness when Lily's Hogwarts letter arrived at the tender age of eleven, and she left Petunia behind.

Magic from the real world had destroyed the magic of their shared fantasy world.

And there wasn't a day that Lily didn't long for things to go back to the way it was before. But not at the expense of the magic that she had. And Petunia refused to agree to disagree about the subject.

Lily tried to reach out, because she missed they friendly banter and dynamic. She missed her older sister's advice and reassurance when things got bad. Missed being able to whisper secrets into each others ears with full confidence that the other would take them to the grave. Missed having that rock solid presence to help lead and guide her through the perils of childhood, and the trials of life.

So Lily tried to find that spark of wonder, that spark of fondness and joy that Petunia once had in her eye when she looked upon her younger sister.

But there was nothing but rage and jealousy whenever the topic of Magic was brought up. Nothing but cold bitterness whenever the young witch came home from the Wizarding World. Nothing but contempt, and utter disgust whenever Petunia's eyes met Lily's.

It sent a pulse of despair through Lily's body, and a cold hand of guilt clenched around her heart.

Lily decided that it was nerves that were eating her alive. Not excitement.

She was nervous to see Petunia again.

* * *

Lily's dad was waiting for them when they arrived at Kings Cross Station. She spotted him by his dark brown woolen coat, as she exited platform 9 ¾ with her boyfriend in tow. His eyes met hers when Lily caught sight of him, and a large grin burst forth on his face. Her dad took his mittened hand out of his pockets and opened his arms out.

"Dad!" Lily cried out as she picked up the pace, dropped her trunk down on the ground and gave her dad their first hug since he had seen her off on the first of September. "I missed you!"  
"I missed you too," He said, after releasing Lily, "Merry Christmas, Lily-flower." His smile never dropped, and Lily couldn't help but grin back.

"Merry Christmas Dad!" She replied before she heard the very distinct sound of footsteps following up behind her.

Without even looking Lily reached her arm back behind her, and not even a moment later her hand easily slipped around the crook of her boyfriend's elbow. "Dad, this is my boyfriend James."

"An honor to meet you, Sir." James said as he raised his free hand to shake with the older man.

Lily's father took his hand and stared straight into the young man's eyes. "So you are the infamous 'James Potter' that my daughter is enamoured with." He said neutrally.

Oh boy. She knew that voice.

This wasn't exactly how Lily wanted things to go, but she couldn't say that she was surprised by it.

James didn't waver under the gaze of Lily's dad. "Your daughter is a strong, and beautiful woman. I'm lucky that she ever decided to give me the time of day." he said with a light laugh at the end.

Lily felt her cheeks warm up.

Her father was quiet for a moment. And then, "Yes, you are.." he said, "My wife and I have heard a lot about you through Lily's letters. She's been writing about you since the two of you started Hogwarts, if you can believe it. You are certainly quite the character in her stories." His tone making it clear that Lily's Dad was in no way, shape, or form impressed by Lily's boyfriend.

This time James did waver under his gaze.

Lily and James turned to each other and shared a look.

This was definitely not going to be as smooth as they hoped.

* * *

"Lily-flower! Welcome back, sweetheart!"

Lily was engulfed in a massive hug before she could even cross through the doorway. It took a moment for it to register in her head before the ginger-haired teenager grinned and returned the hug two-fold.

There was nothing Lily loved more than getting hugs from her parents. Especially that first one she'd get after coming home from school.

"Merry Christmas, Mum!" Lily greeted her mother happily. Then she took the opportunity to subtly glance around over the older woman's shoulder.

Petunia wasn't there to welcome her.

Lily knew that her sister probably wouldn't greet her. Petunia had never done so when Lily came home from Hogwarts. Not even if their parents forced her.

If things went Petunia's way, she would ignore Lily's entire existence unless Lily forced her to talk with her. Despite her foreknowledge, Lily couldn't help but feel a wave of disappointment hit her.

The two broke apart and Lily's mother cupped her hand around her daughter's cheek.

"Ooooh Merry Christmas, dear! Merry Christmas! Ah, just look at how much you've grown! My goodness, they must be feeding you quite well at school, aren't they? Oh, come in, come in. You all must be freezing out there!" The older woman said as she ushered the group into the house.

"Do I get a hug?" Lily's father asked as he entered the house after her.

"Did you fill up on gas on the way back from London?" her mum asked pointedly.

"...No"

"Then no hugs for you until the tank is full."

The smile on Lily's face only grew bigger and bigger as she took in the sight of the house that she had so many fond childhood memories of.

"Mum, Dad, the decorations are amazing this year." The girl said as she marveled over the tall evergreen tree in the living room, and all of the amazing decor surrounding her. "Did you two do this all yourselves?"  
Her dad took off his hat and mitten. "Of course we did. What, do you think we're going to pay someone else money when we have the greatest interior decorator in all of Britain under this roof?"

"Oh, honey," Lily's mum preened, "That's so sweet of you to say!"

"And by greatest interior decoration in all of Britain, I mean myself." He continued. Without missing a beat, Lily's mum let out an angry huff as she elbowed him in the ribs.

Lily couldn't help the giggle that escaped her lips as she listened to her parents. It was great to see that they haven't changed.

And then, anticipation built up in the girl's chest.

"Mum, this is my boyfriend, James." Lily said, and then held her breath.

James moved beside her. He raised his hand and waved with his shoulders back, and head held high in a confident manner. "Hello, Mrs. Evans. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. And may I say, you have an absolutely lovely home." He said, putting his best foot forward.

Lily thought he was doing a great job. James was staying true to his word as well, no pranking, no back-talking, no swearing, not even a single mention of magic since the two of them had gotten off the train.

Even in the car, the conversation mainly focused on James trying to make light hearted jokes about the weather and pointing out interesting Muggle things that caught his eye as they sped across the cold December roads.

Unfortunately, her father had been rather closed off for the entire ride. Anything he did say was directed at Lily, asking about how her year was going, how her grades were looking, how her friends were. He pretty much ignored anything James had to say. Lily could see that it was bothering her boyfriend, but she didn't know how she was supposed to mediate the situation. This was the first time she brought a boy home, she didn't know if this was a normal reaction or not. She was still in the process of trying to navigate these turbulent waters herself.

But James was really trying to make a good impression. He kept on smiling, kept making jokes, and kept being friendly.

Lily was so proud of his efforts. And a little upset with her father over the cold shoulder he was giving to James.

Maybe it was just a guy thing. That her dad was just being a bit too over protective. Besides, Lily knew that her mother would just love James. After all, it was her mom that had spent the last few years asking her if she'd gotten a boyfriend yet.

But Lily still held her breath as her mother narrowed her blue eyes and studied James's appearance. She seemed to be looking for something. Something that Lily wasn't sure that her mother was seeing based on the way that her mother's eyebrows creased together, and her lips tugged down into a frown.

But then in a complete 180, her mum smiled and extended her hand out. "A pleasure to meet you too, James," she said warmly. Lily released her breath as James shook her mother's hand.

This meeting was going better. Things were going to be ok.

"Now,You all must be hungry." Lily's mother said, addressing the whole group, before turning her eyes to her husband. "Darling, why don't you show James around the house? I'll be needing Lily's help putting food on the table. We should be ready in a few minutes."

Almost instantly, James shot Lily a helpless look. Lily didn't know what else to do other than give him a sympathetic shrug as she whispered "It'll be alright, just talk about Quidditch. Dad loves the concept of flying broomsticks."

She then quickly took to the task of kicking off her boots and hanging up her coat. She slipped her feet into a pair of worn, fuzzy slipper that she had gotten as a Christmas present from her father two years before. Then she nudged another pair of slippers with her toe for her boyfriend to use.

Lily squeezed James's hand in reassurance before he set off to follow her dad on what was most definitely going to be an awkward tour of the house. Then, she turned to follow her mother into the kitchen.

She smelled it be for she saw it. A mouth-watering feast lay sprawled out on every counter and table top in the room.

There was a bowl of steaming roasted potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, pigs-in-a-blankets, even a plate of Lily's favorite yorkshire pudding! And resting on top of the stove was a large Turkey bathed in a kaleidoscope of brown, gold, and orange colors, absolutely baked to perfection.

"Mom, how long did it take to make all of this?" Lily asked, taking in the sight of the food in the kitchen, "Christmas is still a few days away."

"Well, I wanted you to feel welcome. I made reservations for dinner on Christmas Eve for the grand occasion, so we won't be eating at home then. This will be our home cooked Christmas Dinner this year." Lily's mother said as she quickly wiped her hands on a dishcloth and then moved to stir the gravy where a thick film had settled on the top.

Lily rolled up her sleeves. "Ok, what should I start with first? Should I grab the turkey?"

Her mother was quiet as she continued to stir the gravy.

"Mom?" Lily asked again.

"Lily-flower, I need to talk to you about something."

"What about?"

Her mother stopped stirring and turned to face Lily. "I don't think James is good for you."

Lily did a double take and accidentally knocked a spoon off of the counter as she flailed her arms around in a sudden burst of resolute anger. " _What?_ Mom, no!" But before Lily could start ranting, her mother lifted a hand to stop her.

"I know you don't want to hear this," her mother said sternly, "But you need to. Both your father and I don't approve of him. And quite frankly, neither of us understand why you started dating him after almost six years of you constantly complaining to us about his behavior towards you and others."

Lily couldn't believe what she was hearing. She'd been expecting a conversation like this with her sister but not with her mother. Lily crossed her arms in front of her chest, "How can you say that when you've only known him for what, two minutes? James is a good person, and he's changed since then! If he hadn't matured then I wouldn't be dating him right now! Why don't you trust my judgement?"

"I do trust your judgement," Her mother stressed, "Just not when it comes to this. Isn't James the same person you reported to Professor McGonagall for dropping a sack full of spiders on a group of eleven years old on their first day of school last year because they happened to be in Slytherin?"

"Yeah, but-"

"-Isn't he the same person who would routinely hex other students in the halls for no other reason than because he could?"

"...Yes, but mom-"  
"-Didn't he also try to blackmail you into dating him by saying that he would stop bullying others only if you became his girlfriend?"

"He was _fifteen_! Lots of people say and do stupid things when they're fifteen!"

"That was barely two years ago. And there are lots of fifteen year olds out there that don't try to force a relationship upon others like that. His youth does not excuse his actions."

"This isn't fair, Mom!" Lily struggled to keep from yelling and bring any outside attention to their argument, "You're focusing on all of his flaws and mistakes! Sure James can be arrogant and a jerk sometimes but he's my Jerk! And he's a genuinely good person when you get to know him!

He could have been sorted into Hufflepuff with how loyal he is to his friends! He takes care of one of his friends when they are constantly getting sick, and he even opened up his home to another friend when they got disowned by their parents! That's not something a bad person does.

James is the person who'd let you cry on his shoulder, a person who would go above and beyond to make his friends happy, and he is honestly one of the smartest people in our grade. And he gives everything his all.

He's trying so hard right now to put his past behind him and be better than he used to be. He has stopped bullying other kids, he's owning up to his actions, and Professor McGonagall wouldn't have named him Head Boy of Gryffindor if she didn't think he could be responsible.

 _James. Is. Different. Now_ "

Lily's mother sighed audibly, making her annoyance known as she pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. "And what if he falls back on his old behaviors? What if he reverts back to the person you used to spent so many years disliking? Actions speak louder than words, Lily. You have to understand that."

"And what if he doesn't? People learn and grow and change." Lily shot back, "I just don't understand why we have to have this conversation in the first place. You're always telling me that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but that's exactly what you're doing here! You and dad don't even want to give James a chance to prove himself!"

"This is deeper than just the cover of a book! We are judging him based on how he has conducted himself in the past, and what you've told us about him!"

"So why aren't you listening to me when I say that he isn't like that anymore?!" Lily half screamed. The sound of her slamming her fist down on the counter echoed in the sudden silence of the room.

Lily was quiet.

Her mother was quiet.

And then

"Lily-flower," Her mother said, breaking through the tension, "We're just concerned. We don't want what happened to your sister to happen to you."

Lily looked away. She didn't say anything. She couldn't say anything right now that she wouldn't immediately regret.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her mother leaning forward, trying to make eye contact with Lily. But Lily kept her eyes down.

Her mother sighed again. "We'll talk more about this later when we're both calmer. Right now let's get the food out before the boys are done." She said with a firm nod, effectively ending the conversation.

"Fine."

Once more, an awkward silence descended upon the two of them. No one moved.

Then a thought surfaced in Lily's head.

She hesitated.

"Is Tuni around?" Lily asked quietly. She hadn't seen Petunia yet, and it was slightly concerning considering what she had heard of Petunia's physical state in these last few months. Lily felt that she should have seen something of her sister by now, even if Petunia was actively trying to avoid her.

And then her mother offered Lily a smile, "She's sitting in the dining room already, just finished setting the table."

Lily felt a flush of something coarse through her body. Whether it was relief or dread, she couldn't tell. "She set the table? So she's doing better, right? Acting like her old self again? "

"Oh she's acting like her old self again, alright. Avoiding anything related to Christmas, hiding away in her room, refusing to talk whenever she hears the word 'magic'. You know how she gets in December, particularly around... the Holidays..." her mother trailed off.

Lily could practically hear the 'particularly around you' part that went unsaid. "So she really hasn't changed, has she?"

"Well, she is a little bit more," Her mother paused, as if she was looking for the right word, "Fragile" she decided. "Definitely a lot more withdrawn from what I've seen, and it is certainly not the Winter Blues putting her in that mood. But enough about that, you can talk to her at the table yourself. Here, take the turkey over to the dining room and put it in the center. Off you go, then!"

* * *

Petunia was sitting at the head of the table.

One hand folded in front of her while the other cradled her slumped head. She wore a pair of pitch black sunglasses that completely obscured her eyes, and the curtain of hair that obscured the rest of her face dipped down so low that the ends brushed against her empty plate.

Lily inhaled sharply, and almost dropped the plate of turkey when she saw her.

It was only then, when Lily was standing in the doorway to the dining room, seeing her sister for the first time in four months, that it finally hit her that Petunia was sick. Really sick.

Her sister was literally paler than a sheet of paper. To the point where it almost seemed like her skin was as transparent as the Hogwarts ghosts. She looked like she had lost half her weight since the summer, and there was a noticeable tremble in the hand resting on the table despite her not moving it otherwise.

In short, Petunia looked like she'd been through hell, and she hadn't quite managed to make it back all in one piece.

Lily wasn't sure how long she stood there, just staring at her sister's destitute form. It was one thing to hear about Petunia's condition in letters, but an entirely different thing to see it in person.

This was what Dursley did? This was what he reduced her sister too?

Petunia didn't even move when Lily enter the room. Her older sister sat there in that position, frozen in place as if she'd been petrified by a Basilisk or a Gorgon.

It was unnerving.

Usually Petunia would snap at her. Start criticizing her looks, her posture, her generally outdated knowledge of the latest muggle pop culture. Or even just wordlessly make it clear that she was going to ignore Lily for the entire visit by sending one of her famous death glares at her. But Petunia didn't do any of this.

She was just… there.

Just existing at the table. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Slowly and carefully, Lily walked over the dining table and placed the turkey in the center. Her eyes never left Petunia, and Petunia didn't stir. Not once.

Lily risked a glance back in the direction of the kitchen.

She could hear her mother moving around, gathering armfuls of dishes to bring to the table. And further in the house she could hear the muffled sound of James talking animatedly about something, and her father actually engaging him in conversation. Lily couldn't tell what they were talking about, but the fact that they were both talking to one another was still a massive improvement from their interactions in the car.

Their voices were getting louder. They were coming closer.

Lily turned back to the table, pulled out the chair next to her sister, and sat down. She cleared her throat.

"Merry Christmas, Tuni."

And Petunia looked up.

 **Author's Note:**

 **Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And if you don't celebrate it, go out and treat yourself to something nice. You deserve it ^.^**

 **In honor of the holiday, here's the longest chapter to day with over 5,000 words in total of Lily's point of view. Yeah I really had too much fun writing from her perspective, and it has a lighter tone than the last chapter (other than the argument Lily had with her mom). Also, this story is now over the 20,000 word mark! Yay!**

 **I really wanted to dig deeper into the relationship between the entire Evans family and how they would receive James because there really isn't all that much information about them, or at least none that I have found. So I've taken some liberties with them. I also feel like Mr. and Mrs. Evans would be a lot more paranoid about who their daughter decided to bring home after the disaster with Vernon and Petunia (Dania)**

 **Next chapter will most likely be up in time for Christmas, but no sooner since I'm going to be super busy in these next couple of weeks.**

 **Thank you so much for all of your support! If you liked the chapter, please feel free to leave a review, it really helps me with my motivation to write this story :D**

 **Until next time!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


	7. Chapter 7

Dania knew that it was going to be bad when Mr. Evans came back with his daughter. She prepared herself, gathered her strength and hunkered down in her spot at the table.

All she had to do was make it through an hour, probably even less than that, of mindless conversations, holiday feasting, and a family reunion that she shouldn't be a part of. After that she could slink away back up to her room and sleep the rest of the night away in a food induced coma.

Simple enough.

Lily's arrival was marked with laughter and vivid conversations that blended together like a pile of crayons that melted in the sun. But the sound of what Dania assumed was Lily's voice carried through the house loudly and clearly like nails being scraped across a chalkboard.

Dania gritted her teeth and forced herself to power through the insipid pain in her ears that wormed straight into her brain creating a massive pressure that weighed heavy on her.

There was a voice in the back of Dania head telling her that she should get out. That she should just get up and leave. Save everyone the trouble. And maybe save herself all of the struggle.

But Dania didn't get up, didn't flee. She was determined to sit there and make it through the dinner if it killed her. The least she could do was to present herself as a somewhat normal human being. Just so that she could keep any negative attention off of her.

And for what it's worth, her resolve lasted far longer than expected. Dania made it a whole fifteen minutes before she gave in.

The second Lily Evans crossed the threshold between the kitchen and the dining room, Dania was hanging onto consciousness by a literal thread. But she could _feel_ Lily's presence.

Just there, hovering at the edge of her personal space.

Suddenly, every sound around Dania that had been banging in her head faded into a mute hum, and the sound of her pounding heart overtook everything else. Her tunnel vision returned at full force, narrowing her field of view until the only thing that she could see was the filtered view of a tiny chip at the edge of her plate through her sunglasses.

Dania did not look up when Lily took a step toward her.

She did not look up when Lily carefully putting down whatever it was that she was carrying

She did not look up when Lily took a seat beside her.

And Dania most certainly did _not_ look up when Lily began to speak.

Something exploded inside Dania, sending ash and soot throughout herself, clouding her body and mind. There was a dull numbness that encompassed her entire body and every single turbulent emotion that she felt leading up to this moment.

It felt like she was back in the murky haze of nothingness that she remembered before waking up in this strange new universe. Another reminder that she did not belong here. She should get out.

And Dania was floating.

Disconnected from her thoughts, her feelings, her memories, her surroundings, and time itself. She felt the nothingness. She breathed the nothingness. She smelled the nothingness. She tasted the nothingness. She was the nothingness.

Dania could vaguely recall from what seemed like a lifetime ago, her roommate Genevieve listing off some of the symptoms of her dissociative disorder. Dania thought that it might be relevant to her current situation, she couldn't tell why exactly. Her thought process was slipping through the cracks of her mind and she couldn't remember what was going on.

What had she been doing just now?

Dania didn't belong.

So why was she here?

She should get out.

Dania felt her mouth move, twisting her tongue around to form words in her second language, but all that came out was static.

More people came. Mrs. Evans from the kitchen, Mr. Evans from the living room followed by a stranger with messy black hair and impeccably clean glasses. Dania couldn't see them through the veil of white clouds blocking her vision, but they were there. She knew it as instinctively as she knew how to breathe.

She didn't belong.

She should get out.

They sat around the table, and their conversations sounded like silver bells chiming in a gentle winter wind

She didn't belong.

She should get out.

Plates were passed, food was served, and the bells rang faster.

She didn't belong.

Get out.

Someone was talking to her. Dania didn't know what they were saying but she tried to at least make an acknowledging noise.

She said something. Hands slammed down against the table, and someone started crying.

 _You don't belong._

 _ **Get out.**_

She didn't wait. She made a break for the stairs.

* * *

Lily didn't expect things to be easy going into this family reunion, but she didn't think it would get so messy and complicated right from the get go and just go straight to hell.

The first thing out of Petunia's mouth was:

" _Did you bring home another frog's nest on your head or do you just not know how to brush?"_

Lily was completely taken off guard when her sister that had spent her entire life in England suddenly acquired the strangest combination of a Scandinavian and American accent.

She thought their parents had been joking when they said Petunia gained a new accent and knowledge of a completely random language. That just didn't happen to Muggles, or to Wizards for that matter. Maybe if there was a potion mishap but only under highly specific circumstances that Lily doubted that her magic-hating sister would ever find herself in.

Lily was so taken aback, she apologized on reflex.

Petunia tipped her head back and stuck her chin in the air. " _Do I look like I'm here for your hand-outs?"_ She said looking down at Lily.

And things didn't get any better from there.

" _Don't they teach you how to sit properly at that circus of a school you go to? Don't slouch!"_ Petunia snarled as the James and the rest of Lily's family approached the table.

And when James introduced himself as politely as he possibly could, Lily's sister huffed and said, " _Oh please, an uncultured swine would have more grace befitting of a gentleman."_

Petunia never hid her disdain for the Wizarding World, but even this was getting into more extreme territory that she had never ventured into so publicly.

" _Got yourself a new boyfriend, Lily? One freakish bully wasn't enough for you? At least you've dumped that Snape kid. I've always said that he was bad news, but I guess it's been established that 'bad news' is your type."_

Lily's parents had tried to run interference, falling back on proven methods developed through many years of trial and error.

They started serving the food, talking about how wonderful it would be if there was a white Christmas, and singing praises to both daughters while gently reminding them that this was a family diner and they should act like a family. Especially in front of a guest, even if they themselves didn't particularly like said guest.

Usually this was enough to stop Petunia's tirade against Lily, but this time it was different.

" _I'm only voicing some observations,"_ Petunia said with a sickly sweet smile on her face, " _I won't pretend to be civil to the freaks if they can't be civil back."_

Lily had to physically restrain James from leaping across the table to get at Petunia. And what worried Lily was that she had no idea what James would do if he got close enough to her sister in the heat of the moment. But Lily knew exactly what Petunia would do.

" _Oh, how violent! Is this how all Hogwash students behave? A good thing your kind is quarantined away from the rest of our proper society. I can't even imagine what it would be like if you freaks went around attacking good, honest, normal people for no reason."_

Bitterness had twisted Petunia's facial features, but there was a clear underlying smugness underneath her scowls.

Petunia knew what she was doing, and Lily questioned why she ever thought they could just go back to being the Queen of the Schoolyard, and the Brave Princess of Chimneys like they were in their childhood years.

" _A shame the two of you are planning to leave on Christmas Eve after we pay for your dinner. Father and I are planning to attend the premier of that Star Wars movie that's been causing such a stir in the States. But given how lazy freaks like you are, I hardly think either of you will be able to wait long enough to see it. There will be, after all, only two theaters in London that are to show the movie, and I can't imagine how long the lines will be."_

Maybe it was because there was more than just one Wizard in the house rather than just Lily. Maybe it was the stress of the holiday season getting to Petunia, she never did like Christmas after all. Or maybe her illness that was pushing her to the line that she'd never dared to cross before.

" _Is a soap opera in space too mundane for the likes of your kind? My sincerest apologies for offending your delicate sensibilities."_

Lily tried to defend herself. To defend James, and the rest of the Wizarding World. But the only thing Petunia had to say was:

" _You're mistaking me for someone who cares."_

But none of Petunia's insults throughout the evening held a candle to her parting words.

Lily's sister slammed her fists down against the table and as she stood up from her chair. The sudden bang silenced all of the other conversations.

" _But you know what makes me feel truly sick? Having you occupy my head-space rent free. You don't belong._ _ **Get out.**_ " Petunia spat out with so much more venom than Lily thought was possible.

Lily burst out into tears as her sister stormed away without even bothering to look back.

She never felt more grateful for James's presence, tucking her into his warm embrace and calming her with soothing words and promises to make things better.

* * *

 _You don't belong here. Get out._

One minute Dania was sitting at the table, preparing herself to face her sister who wasn't, and then next she had thrown open the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom.

She couldn't remember what happened. She didn't even know how, when, or why she left the dining room only to lock herself in the bathroom.

Was the dinner over? Dania hoped it was for the sake of her own dignity. The last thing she wanted was to make a scene and bring attention to the fact that she wasn't who she said she was.

 _Get out of my head or suffer._

Dania flinched. Why was she poking around the medicine cabinet anyway?

Oh right. Her meds. She forgot about her meds. She needed to take them before she went to bed. And after all the stress she'd been under these last couple of days, she didn't want to risk going without them.

 _Oh you think you're stressed now? I'm just getting started._

Dania let out a low, disgruntled growl escape the back of her throat. She tossed a shampoo bottle aside as she dug deeper into the cabinet. Where were her medications? She knew they were around her somewhere.

 _Get out. I'm warning you._

There!

Dania's hands closed around an orange bottle, and she pulled it out. She scanned the label and to her relief, she had finally found the right one.

With a trembling hand, she shut the cabinet door and fumbled her fingers as she began unscrewing the cap. It took her a few tries to figure out how to get past the safety lock but she managed.

 _I'll make you pay for ruining my life._

Dania cupped a hand and tipped two pills into her palm. She closed her hand and brought it against her chest. She breathed in deep.

 _You think you can just get on with your life like nothing happened? With no consequences whatsoever?_

She flicked her eyes up and stared at her face in the mirror. The face of a stranger. The face of Petunia Evans.

 _I can do this until the end of time. You'll never rest easy again if I have anything to say about it._

Dania knuckles went white as she tightened her grip on the half empty pill bottle. She kept her meds close to her but she didn't take them. "Were you here this entire time?" She whispered, staring at the reflection in front of her.

 _Who you do you think keeps sending you to the hospital?_

"Figured as much." Dania heaved a sigh, "Why couldn't I hear you before now? What changed? "

 _You never wanted to listen to me. The only language you seem to understand is pain. But then Lily showed up, and I suppose that you should never underestimate the power of spite._

"What does that supposed to mean?"

 _Lets just say I had a lot of pent up rage I needed to let out._

"So what? You just want to sling insults at your sister?"

 _What I want is for you to leave._

"If I could leave, I would." Dania said. She pressed her lips together in a thin line.

 _Doesn't change the fact that you're still here. And believe me, you've definitely overstayed your welcome._

The pressure in Dania's head increased exponentially. Dania almost doubled over in pain, but managed to catch herself against the counter at the last minute. "I can't think straight when you do that." she hissed, putting the bottle down before pressing her fingers against her forehead, as if the action could actually help.

 _Good. Maybe that will make you get out faster._

"I don't know how to get out!" Dania said, bordering on hysterics, "You think I want to be here?"

 _Yes._

"Well I don't! I really don't! I'm sorry we're in this shitty situation, and I'm sorry I can't leave you alone."

 _If you were really sorry, you'd leave._

Dania resisted the urge to scream out in frustration "I'm telling you! I don't know how to leave!"

 _You're just too much of a coward to figure out how to do it._

"There is no way."

 _No muggle way. Lily might know something._

"You hate magic."

 _I hate this situation more. I'm mad, and fresh out of fucks to give._

"You're not what I imagined a younger Petunia Dursley to be like."

 _That's because I'm not a Dursley, and I never will be because of you. Now stop talking to yourself in the mirror. It's not normal._

"Nothing about this situation is normal."

 _That's because you stole my perfectly ordinary life away and turned it into an absolute monstrosity! And now you won't get out! You don't belong here, just go home already!_

"I. Don't. Know. How"

 _All you have to do is ask my sister. Not right now while she's being a whiny brat, but maybe sometime in the morning_.

"I can't"

 _Why not?_

Why not indeed?

Lily Evans was perhaps the only person who would be able to tell that Dania wasn't really Petunia and actually be able to do something about it.

She could help them. Help Dania get out of this mess of an afterlife. Lily had access to the Hogwarts library with tens of thousands of books solely dedicated to magical subjects. There had to be something in there about soul-swapping, universe hopping, or whatever it was that happened to Dania and Petunia.

Lily and James were only visiting for four days, and leaving on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas day with James's parents. Dania had the time to plan, the time to ask, and the time to convince Lily that something was terribly wrong with her sister.

But Dania hesitated.

Because in the end, Lily was still a seventeen year old girl, and not even a completely trained witch. Was she even capable of tackling a problem as big as this?

And even if she could, if she figured out a way to help Petunia regain control of her body, what would happen to Dania? Would Dania, as the invading soul, even be able to survive whatever cure Lily could come up with?

Because if it came down to either saving Petunia or Dania, there was no doubt that Lily would choose Petunia over a stranger whose only caused problems.

As much as Dania wanted to see if magic could reverse the effects of whatever it was that happened to her, she didn't trust it enough to actually go through with it.

It was too risky. She couldn't die. Not again.

 _I'm waiting._

Dania stayed quiet.

 _What happened to all of that brooding and angsting and 'Oh woe is me, all I wanted to do was go home'.  
_ "I do want to go home. There is nothing I want more than to see my family again."

 _But when I offer you an actual chance of getting out of here, you clam up and say that it's impossible? You're living in a world of magic now. You don't have to like it, I most certainly don't, but you can't just ignore it._

"I am not about to put my life in the hands of a teenager who hasn't even graduated magic high school. And I don't exactly trust her to have my best interests in mind when trying to reverse this."

 _If you don't talk to Lily, I'm going to make you live out the rest of your miserable existence in this universe on life support._

"I'm sorry, Petunia" Dania said, strengthening her resolve. There was no turning back. "But for now, I'm staying.

 **So move aside** "

A deep power sent ripples through her mind like a stone being tossed into a still pond.

And suddenly, the voice went quiet. The pressure was lifted, and the thick veil of fog was lifted.

Petunia was gone. Banished to the farthest reaches of their shared mind.

And Dania hadn't felt so good since Mrs. Evans first opened the letter from Lily announcing that she was coming home with her boyfriend for the holidays.

Her usual aches and pains were still there, and her particularly persistent headaches still pinched at her brain. She also suspected that her light sensitivity issues hadn't been resolved, but at least she could _breathe_ again.

Dania uncurled her hand. The pills were still there, completely in tacked. She was actually surprised that she hadn't crushed them completely after everything that had happened.

Without saying another word, she popped them into her mouth, turned on the tap, leaned over, and washed her meds down with water straight from the faucet.

Dania took some time to clean up the mess she made in the medicine cabinet before turning on her heels with the intent of going to her room and collapsing on her bed. She felt that she deserved a nice long nap.

She left the bathroom.

And the door closed behind her.

 **Author's Note:**

 **Merry Christmas everyone, my present to all of is the final installment of the Christmas Dinner arch. And oh boy did I drag this thing out. It was only supposed to be a chapter long but ended up being three. Next part will be a time skip and I promise it won't take as long to get through it.**

 **Some of you guys guessed that Petunia wasn't actually gone, and kudos to you for figuring it out! She's been here since pretty much the beginning and has been fighting back for control of her body since Dania showed up on the scene. And that's why Dania feels like a dumpster fire every waking moment of her life.**

 **I'm not sure how in character Petunia is, I'm trying to write her as what I would imagine her to be in her early 20s as opposed to her early 30s. She ended up being a lot angrier and sassier than expected, but it was really entertaining to write.**

 **A note about the Star Wars movie reference: Star Wars: A New Hope was released in the US in May of 1977 but didn't premier until** **December 27, 1977 in the UK. And in honor of the recent release of Rise of Skywalker, I thought I'd give the franchise a mention.**

 **Also, if you guys are interested in reading a Self-insert based in absurdism as opposed to one based in existentialism (like this fic is) check out my other story** _ **We put the Fun in Funeral.**_ **It's a Percy Jackson fic and it's a wild ride to read if I do say so myself.**

 **Thank you to everyone who has read this story and left a review! It fuels my motivation and desire to continue writing this story every time I read one. It means a lot to know that people are actually enjoying my writing.**

 **See you all in the New Year!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


	8. Chapter 8

The disaster known as the Evans Family Christmas Reunion of 1977 ended far more anticlimactically than it began.

Four and a half days of hot tempered anger, vicious arguments, homemade insults, and sky-rocketing tensions between every single person under the roof of the brick townhouse in Cokeworth, simmered down into a tangy displeasurable atmosphere. It was manageable, at least. No one was tearing into each other by the time Christmas Eve rolled around.

All five of them piled into the car and drove to a nearby restaurant that Mrs. Evans had made reservations at.

They ate in an awkward silence that was only broken by the sounds of other patrons in the restaurant, the sounds of clanking silverware, and the occasional comment on the weather.

Mrs. Evans and Lily seemed to be at odds, and kept staring each other down from across the table. Dania was only vaguely aware of why, something to do with Lily's lack of post-Hogwarts plans and Mrs. Evans's general dislike in Lily's choices in men.

Mr. Evans kept trying to keep James as far away from Lily as politely possible by ensuring that he was sitting between them. About half way through the meal, Mr. Evans engaging James in an animated one-sided discussion about the latest episodes of Mr. Evans's favorite day-time soap opera.

James wasn't paying attention in the slightest.

He kept leaning back in his seat and making goofy faces at his girlfriend in an attempt to grab her attention from the staring contest she was locked into with her mother. But when he wasn't focused on Lily, he was focused on Dania.

James wasn't exactly subtle when his facial expression would either morph into a scowl, or a ridiculously smug look every single time his eyes landed on Dania. She knew his reputation, from the books and from listening to Mrs. Evans rants in which she recalled every single complaint Lily had ever lodged against James in her letters home.

Dania could safely assume he was planning something. Something that she wasn't going to like.

Dinner ended with little fanfare. They squared away the bill and left.

Mr. Evans dropped off Mrs. Evans and Dania at the house and set off to take Lily and James to London where they planned to meet up with James's parents to spend Christmas day with them.

Lily and James were finally gone. It was over.

Dania didn't bother hiding her relief.

* * *

January 1, 1978 was a breath of fresh air.

A new year that held promise of new beginnings and a restart to the mess that had become Dania's life.

It had been three months since the plane crash, since Dania had found herself in the Harry Potter-esque Universe. Three months to recover, three months to grieve, three months to gather the strings of her sanity to begin pulling herself together.

She was tired of being passive. Of having things happen to her rather than going out and getting things done herself.

This was a new year. A new life.

She'd made many resolutions in the past. Lose weight, exercise more often, save more money, spend more time with her family. None of them every really panned out the way she wanted them too, if at all.

But this resolution? This one she was going to keep.

It was a new year in a new life.

What was the point of getting a second chance if Dania didn't do anything with it?

Dania sat in front of the cherry wood vanity in her room. Ankles crossed, hands folded in her lap, and eyes closed.

A moment of mindfulness, occasionally interrupted by a cough, but still, a moment of meditation.

She focused on clearing her mind, on her natural pattern of breathing, on her very existence itself.

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

Dania observed the sensations in her toes. Her feet. Her ankles. Her legs. Her torso. Her hands, and arms. Then finally her head.

She was here, she was present, she existed. And most importantly she was calm.

Dania opened her eyes, and the reflection of Petunia Evans blinked back at her in the three piece sectioned mirror of the vanity.

"Petunia." Dania said out loud and nodded her head in greeting. The reflection nodded back.

Silence.

She paused for a moment. No matter how many times Dania ran through and practiced what she wanted to say, she was still uncertain and unsure of her approach.

"I want to start out by apologizing." Dania began, figuring that this was a good place to start, "I was not in the right state of mind when you reached out to me and my behavior towards you was deplorable."

Silence.

Dania continued.

"I propose we work together to solve this body-sharing dilema. Neither of us want to be in this situation any longer than necessary, so the best course of action to take is to pool our resources together to come to a solution that gives us both what we want."

Silence.

"Let's open up the negotiations. I am strongly opposed to mentioning any of this to Lily, but I am willing to write to her asking for some books on soul-magic under the guise of a research project, curiosity, or whatever realistic excuse we can come up with. I don't know how to approach her without tipping her off, so that responsibility would fall to you."

Silence.

"We can also try the public library here in town. I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure where to begin in terms of research in muggle books, but we can start by looking into how different religions view the soul. It wouldn't hurt to do some digging on that topic, and we might find something useful."

More silence.

A cough bubbled up from the base of Dania's rib cage and she brought the crook of her elbow to her mouth to catch it.

"Are you causing my cold?" Dania asked, lowering her arm. "I'm not mad. Just curious to how much influence you have over your body."

Still, there was no response. Dania couldn't tell if Petunia was just giving her the silent treatment or if Petunia genuinely couldn't hear her.

Dania leaned forward in her seat and stared into the large, pale blue eyes. She tilted the head, causing wispy waves of blond hair to tumble across her shoulders.

Petunia was often described by Harry as having very horse like features. A horsy-face with horse-like teeth sitting on an unusually long neck.

But Dania couldn't entirely see where the horse comparison came from.

The woman in the mirror didn't even share many similarities to the brunette actress who portrayed Petunia in the movies. However in Dania's humble opinion, Petunia looked like what Dania would imagine a blond, live-action version of Candace Flynn from Phineas and Ferb would look like.

Large eyes, long neck, hair just past the shoulders, wearing a red and white dress.

The resemblance was uncanny.

"Petunia," Dania said again, "Are you there?"

There was nothing.

Dania waited a few minutes longer, before she tipped her head back and sighed in defeat.

She'll try again tomorrow.

* * *

"So what's the verdict?" Dania asked as she walked out of the Leicester Square Theater and into the cold air of London. Without even thinking Dania turned the collar of her woolen winter coat up to protect against the chill.

"The movie was good. A bit too violent for my tastes, but still good." Mr. Evans stepped in time behind her, flowing out of the theater along with the rest of the movie goers.

"Did you expect anything else? It had the word 'War' in the name" Dania said with a small, bemused smile. "I'm laminating the ticket the first chance I get. And I'm buying every cool shirt and action figure I see." She added offhandedly as the duo approached the car.

Mr. Evans's eyebrows shot up at Dania's declaration, causing his forehead to crease. "Aren't you going a little bit overboard for this? It's just a movie."

"Just a movie? Do you realise how absolutely monumental Star Wars is? It's going to be a multi-generational institution. I'm going to be bragging to my kids and grandkids about how I got a chance to see Star Wars: A New Hope in theaters," Dania said, falling back to walk beside Mr. Evans.

"Whatever you say, Tuni." Mr. Evans said, the skepticism clear on his face. "It's a nice movie, but I don't think it's going to be as timeless as you say it is. I can think of hundreds of movies I saw when I was your age that hardly anyone remembers now."

Dania smiled softly, and buried her face down deeper into her coat. She opened the passenger side of the car and climbed in. "This one's different. Trust me."

It was dark by the time the movie ended despite it only being 5pm. But a myriad of street lights, neon signs, and the occasional string of Christmas lights left over from the Holidays illuminated the area.

The two of them had left bright and early that morning to make it to London to see the showing of the very first Star Wars movie. It wasn't opening night, tickets were impossible to get then.

But a week later after enough people had seen the movie that the theater wasn't anywhere near as crowded? That was the perfect time to go.

It took some convincing, but Dania got Mr. Evans to agree to drive her all the way down to London to see the movie since it was showing in exactly two theaters and not one of them were anywhere close to Cokeworth.

The drive was long, and took a huge chunk of the morning just to get to London. And then they spent a couple of hours by Mr. Evans's favorite pub because that was the one condition Dania had to agree to if she was going to get him to act as her chauffeur.

But it was all worth it just to walk into that theater, settle into the plush seats, and watch something that she had seen so many times in her own universe. In her own time.

Dania was never the biggest fan of Star Wars, she thought it was a cool series that provided solid entertainment, but that's all it ever was to her. Just a movie franchise that played in the background of her apartment as white noise.

It was always her friend Maggie who would buy the merch, draw the fanart, go to the conventions, and force everyone that she knew to watch each movie at least three separate times with her.

Watching at least something Star Wars related was practically part of the job description of being Maggie's roommate. Maggie was the real reason why Dania was familiar enough with Star Wars that she could practically quote the entire original trilogy.

But that was the entire reason why she went to one of the first showings of Star Wars now, more than four decades before her time.

Because while everyone else in that theater was experiencing the movie for the first time, the moment the opening crawl started rolling, Dania was overwhelmed with nostalgia and memories of her friends, family, and everyone that she was forced to leave behind.

It was the same movie that Dania had seen so many times, and just knowing that was nearly enough to make her cry. For a moment, it was like being back home, sitting next to her closest friend and relaxing after a long day of work.

Dania wasn't sure if she ever could go back to those moments, go back to where she belonged.

But this movie was here. It was a connection her old life and her new life. A connection that Dania desperately needed.

She would have to wait forty years before she'd return back to her time naturally. And that was a long time. A daunting number.

But between now and then, there were nine Star Wars releases. Dania could do that. She could wait for one movie, then the next, then the next, and so on. It was more manageable to wrap her head around.

Dania could wait for nine movies, with one down and eight more to go.

She could do this. She'll get home, one way or another.

* * *

"Petunia, are you there?"

"I'm going to move forward with the muggle side of the research plan. Mr. Evans is going to drop me off at the library on Friday on his way to work, and I'll take one of my journals to write down notes."

"Can you hear me? Say something if you can."

"The initial phases of our research have been relatively successful. The good news is that there are a lot of books out there about souls, and there has to be some information out there that will help us. The bad news is that there are a lot of books about souls. It's going to take forever to go through everything and pick out the most relevant ones."

"Hey Petunia, it's been a while since I've heard anything from you. Actually, it's been two months already. Are you doing ok?"

"There are a lot of books on reincarnation that might be helpful. I got a list of them from the librarian. Some of them focus on reincarnation in the philosophical while the others look at it through a religious context. It's going to take a while to get through everything so I'm going to go ahead and take home a few books on the subject the next time I'm at the library."

"Holler if you're still alive."

* * *

Dania was straight up paranoid about her new bout of good health.

The transformation happened just about as fast as the glaciers were melting in the arctic. Slow at first, then quicker than Dania thought possible.

January was spent bundled up like a burrito in blankets on the living room couch with a pair of shades on. The winter weather was harsh on her immune system, giving way to a cold, then to the flu, then to a stomach bug.

There were only maybe six days total that entire month that Dania felt well enough to actually get out of the house, and she used that time to go to the cinema.

February saw some improvements. She was still recovering from the tail end of that last bout of a nasty, wet cough, but oddly enough she felt relatively good otherwise. Her headaches were less frequent, and far more manageable than they had been. The only symptom that persisted was an overwhelming blanket of exhaustion that hung over her every waking moment, leaving her tired enough to want to try to legitimately hibernate until the spring.

Things got even better in March, and that was when the suspicion started to seep in. She didn't feel a single non-stress related headache all month, and she actually had enough strength to go outside for a walk around the nearby neighborhoods. By herself. On a daily basis.

This was a huge deal considering that since her arrival in September, Dania barely could get out of the house without experiencing dizziness and fainting spells. And now she was going out by herself and actually feeling all the more stronger every time she went out.

In April, It hit her that she hadn't been back to the hospital in a long while. Not since she had completely lost her appetite in December. Visits with doctors petered out as well. The initial interest in her supposedly sudden acquisition of a different language had died down and now her doctors ran tests on her about once a month instead of once every week like they did in the beginning.

Even Dr. Benson, the primary psychologists working on her case had stopped his house calls and now only saw her every once in a while.

Mr. and Mrs. Evans were ecstatic. Their daughter was finally getting better.

But Dania was apprehensive about the turn her health had taken.

She still remembered Petunia's parting words.

 _I'm going to make you live out the rest of your miserable existence in this universe on life support._

And Dania didn't know how long her luck would hold.

* * *

"So turns out there's a thing called Soul Dualism. From my understanding, it's the concept that people have two or more souls, one of which is anchored to the body and the other can wander away. I think I might classify as the anchored soul and you might be classified as the wandering soul under this definition, but that doesn't really make sense since you're the original soul of this body and I'm the interloper here. I'm going to ask the librarians and see if they can help find any more information on Soul Dualism because this is looking promising."

"Hello?"

"I found a book on New Age/Metaphysics and it's got a really big section on Soul-Swapping that really sounds similar to what happened to us. It's got a lot of information about Walk-In souls that inhabit a body that is already fully grown as opposed to one that still is an infant like traditionally reincarnated souls. The original soul leaves for the spiritual realm while the Walk-in soul takes its place, but sometimes the original soul hangs around to give the Walk-in soul a crash course on their life. Is that what's happening to us?"

"Petunia?"

"Found some articles this time, not sure if I entirely trust the journal publication but it's some more New Age stuff again. According to this one, a soul exchange typically happens during a traumatic event in the Original soul's life. Does Vernon's proposal count as a traumatic event? I'm still not really clear what happened that day. Your input would be greatly appreciated right now."

"Where are you?"

* * *

A loud clanged echoed through the house, followed by the sound of a stack of pots and pans crashing down to the floor.

"WHAT DOES SHE MEAN SHE'S NOT COMING HOME?"

Dania snapped her head up in attention and tugged the power cord of the vacuum out of the outlet. The noisy hum of the clunky machine died down. Chores were going to have to wait.

She poked her head into the kitchen, "Is everything alright?" She asked gently.

Mrs. Evans stood in profile by the sink, a parchment letter in her hand, a dish towel in the other, an owl waiting patiently in the open window. The woman turned to Dania with a desperately wild look in her eyes.

"She's not coming home," Mrs. Evans said as her voice shook. She closed her fingers around the parchment and crumpled the paper in a tight fist, "Lily's not coming home once she graduates."

Dania blinked. What? Was that supposed to happen?

"May I see that?" Dania asked, reaching out as she crossed the distance. Mrs. Evans wordlessly passed on the letter for Dania to read.

She scanned through the contents with her brows drawn together in concentration. When she got to the end, she reread the whole thing again.

And then it clicked.

The First Wizarding War.

The Order of the Phoenix.

Dania didn't realize that Lily and James were recruited so earlier. And so young too, Lily had only just turned eighteen a few months before. But then again the UK was the only country in Europe where the enlistment age for the armed forces was sixteen, so maybe they weren't that young in that context.

"I knew it," Mrs. Evans said harshly, slamming the towel against the kitchen counter in a show of anger, "I knew that boy was bad news from the beginning. I told her that he wasn't good for her, and now look what happened! He took my little Lily-flower away!"

Dania looked over at the older woman, "I don't think this was James's doing. I'm not even sure if he had anything to do with this at all."

"Well I'm positive he didn't help either," Mrs. Evans snapped back.

"Lily says she won't be home immediately, not that she won't come home at all." Dania said, glancing back down at the wrinkled letter, "Apparently her employment under Headmaster Dumbledore starts the day after she finishes Hogwarts."

Mrs. Evans pressed her fingers against her temples. She stood in the middle of the room for a few beats, radiating frustration and irritation like there was no tomorrow.

Then she spun on her heel, kicked a chair out from the table, and sat herself down with a loud thump.

"It's bad enough that they don't allow Muggles to attend the Hogwarts Graduation, even if we are family." Mrs. Evans said before suddenly deflating, "But now Lily doesn't want to come home to celebrate with us. I had so many plans… I was going to organise the biggest party for her... Invite all her friends. Buy her a new dress. Give her a pearl necklace just like my mother gave me when I finished school, just like the one I gave you, Tuni, when you finished school..." she trailed off, eyes staring off into the distance.

They were quiet for a moment, with only the sound of a ticking clock breaking the silence.

Dania leaned back against the counter, and carefully placed the parchment down beside her "It will be ok, we'll celebrate when she gets some time off from work."

Mrs. Evans let out a heavy sigh, "But when will that be?"

* * *

"Have you moved on, Petunia? Left for the afterlife, the spiritual realm, or whatever that next world is supposed to be? I don't think you have. It doesn't feel like you've left. I can't really describe it, I'm just calling it a gut feeling."

"I've started working on researching the scientific perspective on body-swaps. Most of it's just sci-fi fiction, but I found a few academic biology magazines that discuss the effect a potential mind/body-swap would have on the brain. Since each brain develops differently based on experience, they've theorized that if body-swapping was possible, the skills of person one would not transfer to person two. Instead person one would acquire the skills that person two's brain had been trained to do but since person one doesn't know those skills they won't be able to do it. The idea is certainly worth looking into."

"Are you ghosting me? Is this the soul equivalent of ghosting?"

"I decided to test that theory I was talking about earlier by doing some drawing of roses since it's a relatively simple activity and it's the only thing I actually know how to draw. I didn't seem to have any more trouble than I normally do, so I've come to two possible conclusions. Either the scientists were wrong in their thought experiment, or you know how to draw roses the exact same way I do."

"Time's running out if we want to involve Lily in this. It's almost June and she only has a few more weeks of left access to the Hogwarts Library. I don't know where else she'll be able to get information for us after that."

"I'm going to take your silence as an indication that you are alright with not asking Lily about this."

"The deadline's up. Lily graduated, and is doing God knows what now."

"Hey Petunia, how are you doing?"

 **Author's Note:**

 **Happy New Year everyone! And welcome to 2020! It's a new year and a new decade and I'm so excited to see what it has in store! And to celebrate, here's an extra long chapter for all of you only a week after the last update. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it! :D**

 **All of the research that I did for this chapter was literally just looking through Wikipedia to find information on the soul. I am not claiming to be an expert on this or anything but I wanted to dig deeper into how a self-insert might go about trying to understand their situation, how it worked, and why they were there.**

 **Like this one, the next few chapters are going to be moving quicker through time than the last couple of chapters did. Mostly so we can finally get Harry onto the scene. This chapter covered 1978, so the next chapter will be 1979, and after that it'll be 1980.**

 **A big thanks to everyone who read this story, to everyone who followed and favorited it, and especially to those who took the time to leave a review. Your feedback and support is a monumental factor in my desire to write this story, and** _ **Cursed Reality**_ **would not be possible without you guys.**

 **Seriously, Thank you! Let's make 2020 the best year yet!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


	9. Chapter 9

The doctors cleared Dania for work back in April. Not full-time, though, part-time only. She was allowed an absolute maximum of ten hours of low intensity work a week, although they highly encouraged her to keep it less than five.

It wasn't much, but Dania would have happily gone out looking for a part-time job working as a temp, a low level clerk, a cashier or something else along those lines. There was only so much Dania could take of being cooped up in the house all day for months on end before she began going stir-crazy. Having a part-time job, even if it was only for a few hours a week, would be great to keep her busy and slowly start accumulating some of her own money, but not everyone agreed with that assessment.

Namely, Mrs. Evans. No amount of pushing, arguing, or even pleading on Dania's part could get through to the older woman. Mrs. Evans refused to allow Dania to get any job, not even volunteer work.

"You can't do that," The woman said as if the very thought of it offended her sensibilities, "Not in this state, you're still recovering! I can't let you go out there like that?"

And she would shut down any conversation Dania tried to engage her in.

"What if-"

"Nope!"

"I've been looking at the classified ads and-"

"No, you can't."

"I could try-"

"How about we talk about this later?"

"And when would later be?"

"Next year seems like a fine time to pick up this discussion."

Dania exhaled sharply in frustration as she pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and pointer finger. This was clearly not working. She was going to have to try a different approach.

"Can I say something in full, please?" she asked, removing her hand away from her face and schooled her features. Dania couldn't snap and air out her anger. Not if she wanted to resolve this back and forth now.

Mrs. Evans looked like her first instinct was to deny her, but something held her back. She stood pensively for a moment before slowly nodding, giving Dania permission to speak.

Dania straightened her back, and layed out her case.

"First off, I was given permission by doctors to go back to work almost three months ago."

At this Mrs. Evans opened her mouth but Dania raised a finger to stop her, "I'm aware that you didn't want me to immediately start working," Dania continued, "which is why I agreed to a grace period. But that's all it was. A grace period. Secondly, I am a grown woman who can make her own decisions on her health and well being, and I think it's time for me to return to the workforce."

"No," Mrs. Evans said tersely as clear worry wormed its way into her body language, "You're still sick." she reiterated, "What if you're at work and you feel faint? Or have another migraine? Or get overworked and push yourself too hard? What if you get nauseous, and can't hold anything down? What if it's too soon, and too much for you to handle? What if you get hurt again-"

"And what if I walked outside right now and got hit by a bus?" Dania interrupted, then immediately backtracked when Mrs. Evans's face went white as a sheet. "Not that I'm saying I'd do something like that on purpose. But I can't spend my life clinging on to the 'What ifs'. Sure, those things could happen. Heck, they probably will. However I am not walking into this blind. I know what to do in those situations, and I will make sure that my employers know about my condition.

I understand that you are worried about me, but I can't just stay stuck in this house for the rest of my life."

Mrs. Evans let out an indignant huff, "Tuni, you are not stuck here here. You go to the library every week, you get driven everywhere that you want to go, and take a walk around the neighborhood on a daily basis. Oh, speaking of which, I have been meaning to talk to you about that habit, because I do not approve of you going out in the pouring rain."

"That was one time." Dania gritted her teeth, "I didn't realise it was supposed to rain that day. And can we not change the subject here?"

"You do not need a job right now," Mrs. Evans said with a level of finality told Dania that she wasn't going to win this one, "Right now you need to rest and recover. You can work later."

Dania grimaced. They were just talking in circles; she was going to have to change her approach.

"Alright," Dania conceded, "I won't look for a job right now, but only on the condition that I get an exact date of when you will feel comfortable with me working again. I don't want a vague timeline that can be continuously pushed back."

Mrs. Evans stared at Dania, mulling over the proposed course of action. "Perhapes," Mrs. Evans said slowly with a slight tilt of her head. Dania pounced at the opening, and the haggling began.

"How about August?"

"No! That's barely two weeks away! That's nowhere near enough time!"

"August 31st then."  
"August 31st of next year."

"That date is too far off, and my goal is to start working again before January."

"After Christmas, and not a moment before."

"I propose September 15th. It would be an excellent way to celebrate the one year anniversary by getting back on my feet and returning to some sort of semblance of normality. I won't even look at job listings until then."

There was a pause.

"That's still awfully soon," Mrs. Evans muttered unhappily, but when she didn't immediately present a counter offer, Dania took that as a good sign.

"I'll even cut down my daily walks in half, and dedicate that time toward resting in the house," she added, sweetening the deal.

It took a few more nudges, and several carefully placed encouragement, but by the end of the day Mrs. Evans agreed.

* * *

"Suddenly I understand where you get your stubbornness streak, Petunia."

* * *

Among the constant stream of religious, pseudo-science, actual science, sci-fi and fantasy books that she usually checked out from the library, Dania decided to mix in an introduction to Economics textbook one day.

None of them had anything in them that Dania didn't already know. She didn't know much about the London Stock exchange, that was true, but it couldn't be all too different from its American counterpart or even Nasdaq Copenhagen. Just in case, however she did make sure to pick up a book specifically on that topic. Otherwise, Dania was pretty confident in her knowledge in those areas. Her major in University was Economics after all.

No, the books served another purpose. They were meant to be a cover. An explanation.

Dania left the library carrying four books stacked on top of each other in her arms. Her heels clicked with each purposeful step she took down the front stairs of the building, and her yellow floral patterned dress flared at the knees as she turned the corner. She walked a few blocks, crossed the road, and then arrived at a grocery store parking lot after a few more minutes of strolling through downtown Cokeworth.

This was the arrangement Dania had with Mr. Evans. He would drop her off at the town library at least once a week. Sometimes in the mornings on his way to work if Dania planned to spend a whole day browsing and researching there, and sometimes when he went out to shop for groceries if Dania already knew what she wanted to check out from the library thus only needed half an hour or less to run her errands.

Today was one of those shorter days. She got to the library, returned the books she brought with her, picked out two books related to her body-sharing research that were on her list, chose one novel for her own personal pleasure, and one economics book.

Then by the time Dania had finished her business in the library and made her way to the grocery store, Mr. Evans would usually be waiting in the car for her having finished his shopping, or just getting out of the store with a full cart of goods.

Dania squinted into the blinding sunlight as she scanned the lines of cars, looking for a familiar grey Ford Cortina. The moment her eyes locked onto the Evans family car and noticed a figure milling around it, Dania's face broke out into a triumphant grin.

"I got everything I needed for today." Dania said, announcing her presence as she approached the car.

Mr. Evans, who had been busy getting the trunk open, paused in his work. He shaded his eyes with his hand against the beaming summer sun as he looked up at her "Did you pick up more books on your quest to convert to Buddhism or have you moved to other horizons?"

Dania hummed and maneuvered herself to open the door to the back seat of the car while her arms were full. "I'm not looking to convert, I'm researching."

"Researching what?"

"Souls, the afterlife, and near death experiences just to name a few."

Mr. Evans shot her a look, "I can't tell if I should be concerned about that or not."

"Don't be," Dania was quick to reassure him, "It's a passing interest. Besides, that's not the only thing I got this time, I checked out a book on the basics of micro and macro economics." she said as she unlocked the door and used her foot to swing it open wide enough so that she could plop the books down on the seat.

"I thought you swore off anything to do with math when you finished school." Mr. Evans said casually as he returned to his previous task. He wrapped his hand around two plastic grocery bags in the shopping cart and lifted them out and placed them in the truck. Then turned back to repeat the motion.

"Yeah, but I'm trying something new. I want to invest in the stock market. " Dania said with a causal shrug.

She had done her research, looked through old report cards, and dug up old school assignments that the Evans family kept in the attic in a box with the label 'Petunia: School'. She knew that STEM subjects had never been Petunia's academic strong suits, except for biology. Petunia had always leaned more towards music, oddly enough. That was fine for Petunia if that was what she liked, but it was highly inconvenient for a body-swapper like Dania who couldn't even play a ukulele, one of the simplest instruments to learn, even if her life depended on it.

Dania could get away with her lack of musical talent by just airing her disinterest in playing the piano, and most people simply left it at that. No one wanted to pressure her into returning to a hobby she didn't want to after she had been through such a traumatic experience. Add in a few well placed deflections and misdirections here and there, and it was enough to keep people from looking too deep into the drastic shift in her interests.

The real problem wasn't Dania's lack of knowledge in subjects that Petunia specialized in, it was Petunia's track record of struggling with disciplines that Dania thrived in that became an issue.

Because if she were to suddenly take out a book on econometrics, for example, with absolutely no prior demonstrated skill in basic economics or math, people were going to ask questions. Questions that Dania absolutely did not want to answer. That was why she needed to start small with simple, easy to understand introductory books.

Dania had no credentials, no history in math and most sciences, or even the internet to explain away her knowledge in this world. As she masqueraded as Petunia, she had to establish a new rapport, build up a new story, figure out a way to let her old life bleed into her new one.

"That is definitely something," Mr. Evans said slowly, breaking through Dania's drifting thoughts. He hefted up another grocery bag out of the shopping cart, "But a word of advice from an old fossil like me? Don't trust the stock market. The best financial decision you can make is to hold on to every penny that comes your way."

Dania tilted her head to the side and scrunched her eyebrows together, "If I left all of my money in a savings account, inflation is going to eat it all up. It's much better to invest, and grow my net worth through compound interest. I don't even need to read my book to know that," She said, vaguely gesturing at her pile of books in the car.

Mr. Evans picked up another bag. "That was my parent's approach to finance and that's my approach as well. Not to sound like a grouchy old man, but you kids truly don't know how good you have it. Your future is brighter than a camera flash."

Sometimes it was easy to forget that in this time-warped alternate universe, the middle-aged folks around her were not Baby Boomers. Mr. Evans celebrated his 49th birthday in June. If it was 1978 now, then Mr. Evans would have been born in 1929.

The Silent Generation. Born in the midst of the Great Depression that had swept the globe, then when they grew up, they were thrown into one of the bloodiest wars in human history.

If Mr. Evans had been around in Dania's time, he would either be dead, in a hospital, or in a nursing home. Yet here he was in front of her, with only a slight dusting of salt and pepper grey in his otherwise dark hair.

"What was it like?" Dania suddenly blurted out as her distracting thoughts whirled around her.

Mr. Evans gave her an odd look. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…" Dania trailed off, "Everything. What was everything in your life like?" she asked vaguely. But she didn't know where else to start. What did she know of Mr. Evans?

Where was his childhood home? What was it like growing up in the Depression? He would have been a teenager during the second World War, so what happened to him then? Was he ever caught in a bombing? What about his family? Where were they then? Where were they now?

What were Mr. and Mrs. Evans's backstories?

So many questions. Mr. Evans pressed his lips into a thin line, then smiled.

"Help me finish loading the car," He said jovially as if Dania hadn't said anything at all. But she could see the faint tremble in his wrist as he held out a bag for her to take. "but leave the heavier bags to me. If your mother found out I had you doing the heavy lifting, she would skewer me with a spatula."

Dania stared at the bag, then tentatively accepted it along with Mr. Evans's unspoken plea to drop the subject. She wasn't going to push. Not right now. Perhaps another time.

Then she cast a sideways glance at her books.

"I'm still going to invest." Dania stated.

* * *

"Listen Petunia. It may have only occurred to me today, but the fact that you are a Baby Boomer explains a lot."

* * *

There was a suspicious package waiting on the coffee table when Dania got back from the supermarket. She tossed her house keys onto a side table, hung up her purse, and put down her book stack on the kitchen table so she could sort them out later.

Dania spared the box a sideways glance as she passed through the living room again.

The box looked inconspicuous enough, wrapped in a thick beige paper and held together by twine. But what caused alarm bells to start ringing in Dania's head was the sticky-note sized piece of parchment attached to the top of the package.

It was most likely from Lily. The first piece of mail that she'd sent since declaring that she wasn't going to come home after graduating from Hogwarts.

"We're home, darling!" Mr. Evans called out as he lugged four grocery bags, carrying two in each hand, through the front door.

Dania glanced over at Mr. Evans, caught his eye, and then jutted her chin at the parcel. "Was this here before we left?" she asked.

Mr. Evans paused and looked over at the package, "No," he said as a small, hopeful smile bloomed across his face, "Lily sent us something?"

"Unfortunately, she did not." Mrs. Evans's voice cut through the air like a knife as she walked down the stairs with a severe air about her, "It's from Potter. He sent it to Tuni."

Suddenly Mr. Evans's entire demeanor changed as he regarded the package with a distant and cold look, and Dania reared her head back in surprise.

"I'm sorry, what? He sent a package to me?" she asked. Mrs. Evans nodded her head in affirmative with a disapproving tut rolling off of her tongue.

Why would James Potter send her a package? Dania spoke with him twice, maybe three times if you counted the farewell at the end of his visit, and she didn't really think she made much of an impression on him from what she could remember. To be fair she really couldn't remember much other than Petunia's dramatic return.

But even then, James Potter acted rather coolly towards Dania before he left. Any conversation she tried to engage him in involved a volatile mixture of jabs and digs so subtle Dania wasn't always sure if he was trying to insult her or not.

So why would he send her a package after nearly seven months of radio silence?

Dania stared down at the parcel for a moment before slipping her sunglasses out of her shirt pocket and put them on. She spun on her heels and disappeared into the kitchen, only to emerge a few moments later with a pair of oven mitts on her hands, a towel tied around the lower half of her face, and a garbage bag under her arm.

Mr. and Mrs. Evans watched with growing amusement as Dania maneuvered around the parcel as if it were an unstable explosive device. With a few careful nudges, she pushed the package down into the bag, tied it close, and carried it an arms length away from her right out the front door. Once outside, Dania kicked off the top of the trash bin Mrs. Evans had left out for collection, and dunked the package like a basketball.

Dania wasn't stupid. She wasn't going to accept any unexpected and unmarked 'gifts' from _James freaking Potter_ , an original Marauder of Hogwarts. Quite frankly, Dania didn't have the time or the energy to entertain the teenager's pranking habits, and she just wasn't going to take the risk.

If the package contained some sort of magical practical joke, then Dania was glad to be rid of it. If it had been a genuine attempt at contact, then he could just send a letter or something that looked lot less sketchy.

So without feeling much guilt, Dania turned back to the house and gave Mr. and Mrs. Evans a wave when she spotted them.

Mrs. Evans beamed from the open door, "That's our daughter."

 **Author's Note:**

 **Hey everyone, this chapter is unbelievably late but it's honestly been an unbelievable couple of months. I've been working on this chapter on and off since January and life just kept on getting in the way, especially this last month. I hope you are all safe, at home, and remembering to social distance yourself from others. This is all just so insane -.-**

 **But in happier news, this fic is now officially over 30,000 words long and we have reached the halfway point! All of the major plot points that needed to be set up have been set up, and things are going to get quite exciting from here. It's also been a year since I started this fic too so yay!**

 **Stay safe everyone, and I'll see you next time!**

 **~Lost-In-The-Muse**


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